in 


WITH 

CHRIST 
PALESTINE 


A.T.SCHOFIELD  M.D, 


tihravy  of  t:he  trheolojical  ^t>mm<xxy 

PRINCETON  .  NEW  JERSEY 

FROM   THE  LIBRARY  OF  THE 

REVEREND   CHARLES  ROSENBURY  ERDMAN 
D.D.,  LL.D. 


.35b 


jf.rl;sai,em— ST.  Stephens  gate. 


m     j 


»iti)  Cfjrisit  in 
^alesitine 


Four  Addresses  by 

A.  T.  SCHOFIELD,  M.D. 


R.     F.    FENNO    &    COMPANY 

18   EAST   SEVENTEENTH    STREET,   NEW  YORK 


Contents 

Bethlehem,  or  the  Birth  of  Christ  ,         ,         5 

Nazareth,  or  the  Live  of  Christ       •  .         ,       25 

Capernaum,  or  the  Work  of  Christ  .  ,         'Si 

Jerusal  m,  or  the  Death  of  Christ  ,         ,      74 


These  four  Addresses,  given  m  the  Autumn  of  1905 
by  request  in  a  London  Club,  have  been  pubUshed 
in  the  hope  that  they  may  be  a  help  in  realizing 
some  scenes  m  the  life  of  Christ,  and  in  learning 
the  lessons  connected  with  them.  They  were 
suggested  by  a  visit  to  the  Holy  Land  in  the 
previous  year, 

A.  T.  SCHOFIKLD,  M.D. 
6,  Harley  Street,  W. 


FIRST  ADDRESS 

Bethlehem,   or  the   Birth   of  Christ 

THE  Jaffa  Gate  of  Jerusalem  is  always  crowded. 
It  is  the  portal  by  which  nearly  every  traveller 
enters  and  leaves  the  city,  and  isr  the  highway  to 
Bethlehem,  Hebron  and  Egypt  We  will  journey 
from  it  together  to  the  birthplace  of  Christ,  and  seek- 
to  get  a  mental  picture  of  the  little  town  and  its 
surroundings. 

Standing  at  the  Jaffa  Gate,  we  see  stretching  in 
front  of  us  a  broad  straight  road  leading  do\\T<  ihe 
hill  to  a  bridge.  That  bridge  \?  remarkable  because 
it  is  the  dividing  line  between  Judah  and  Benjamin. 
The  whole  of  the  city  of  Jerusalem  is  in  the  latter 
territory  ;  and  across  the  bridge  is  the  barren  country 
of  Judah,  in  which  Bethlehem  lies.  The  road  is  full 
of  life.  A  great  crowd  of  people  is  passing  up  and 
down  upon  the  right  side.  Many  men  are  carry- 
ing water-skins,  full  or  empty  ;  for  do\\Ti  by  the 
bridge  is  a  very  celebrated  fountain  which  supplies 
the  whole  of  this  part  of  Jerusalem  with  water. 
Those  who  pass  down  with  the  empty  skins  attract 
little  notice,  but  in  returning  the  bloated  forms 
of  the  animals — fuU  to  bursting,  and  dripping  on 
the  dusty  way — form  strange  and  repulsive  objects. 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

On  the  left  half  of  the  road  are  strings  of  camels 
coming  up  the  hill,  generally  three  tied  together  in 
a  string  and  led  by  a  small  black  donkey,  and  all 
laden  with  stone  for  the  building  of  new  houses  in 
and  round  Jerusalem. 

As  we  pass  down  we  see  on  the  left-hand, 
towering  ever  higher  and  higher,  the  bulwarks  of 
Zion  —  thirty  or  forty  feet  high,  with  towers  at 
intervals  —  built  of  large  grey  stones.  The  wall 
rises  higher  as  the  road  descends,  showing  the  bare 
rock  below  on  which  Zion  is  built,  the  two  together 
reaching  a  height,  as  we  get  down  to  the  bridge,  of 
sixty  or  seventy  feet  above  it.  Here  the  hill  of 
Zion  ends  and  the  wall  takes  a  sharp  turn  to  the  east 
and  runs  straight  along  for  half  a  mile  to  the  Valley 
of  Jehoshaphat,  forming  the  south  side  of  Jerusalem 
and  of  the  city  of  Zion. 

Stand  now  for  a  moment  on  this  bridge  and  look 
around.  Here,  on  the  right-hand  parapet  is  the 
fountain  of  which  I  spoke,  perhaps  the  most  remark- 
able fountain  in  the  world,  because  it  is  fed  by 
aqueducts  of  stone,  mainly  built  by  Solomon  him- 
self, and  leading  from  the  King's  Pools,  which  he  con- 
structed some  seven  miles  south  in  the  hills  of  Judea, 
in  order  to  store  the  water  which  he  first  brought 
to  Jerusalem.  His  work  was  destroyed,  and  re- 
paired by  Babylonian  and  Persian  kings,  then  later 
on  by  the  Saracens  and  Turks,  and  last  of  all  by  our 
own  Royal  Engineers,  who  have  so  restored  the 
ancient  conduits,  that  they  now  supply  water  to 
Jerusalem  in  part  along  the  original  route.  But 
Solomon  did  more  than  supply  Jerusalem  with  water. 

If  you  will  turn  due  east,  you  see  in  front  of  you 
6 


BETHLEHEM,  OR  THE    BIRTH  OF  CHRIST 

the  dark  and  narrow  Valley  of  Hinnom,  with,  as  I 
have  said,  the  lofty  wall  of  Zion  running  straight 
along  the  left-hand  side,  till  at  the  end  it  takes  a 
sharp  turn  north.  This  narrow  gorge  is  very  remark- 
able. First  of  all,  it  is  the  boundary  line  between 
Benjamin  on  the  left  and  Judah  on  the  right.  Close 
by  the  bridge,  near  where  you  stand,  was  the  place 
where  the  horrid  image  that  Solomon  erected  to  the 
god  Moloch  was  placed,  in  the  arms  of  which  infants 
were  burnt  alive.  Farther  on  are  the  ceaseless 
smouldering  fires  that  are  never  quenched  day  or 
night,  year  after  year,  where  all  the  refuse  of  Jeru- 
salem is  burnt,  "  where  the  worm  dieth  not  and  the 
fire  is  not  quenched  " — fit  type  of  Gehenna.  Be- 
yond that,  you  can  clearly  see  a  low  brown  hill  across 
the  end  of  the  Valley.  That  is  the  Mount  of  Offence, 
for  on  it  were  built  the  palaces  where  Solomon 
lodged  hundreds  of  his  wives,  to  the  great  scandal 
of  the  men  of  Zion,  who  gazed  at  them  from  the 
battlements  of  the  city.  Now  they  are  all  swept 
away,  and  nothing  is  left  but  the  grey  village  of 
Siloam ;  and  below  it  you  can  see  a  square  enclosure, 
which  is  the  Pool  of  Siloam,  where  the  man  went  and 
washed  his  eyes  and  returned  seeing  at  the  bidding 
of  Christ. 

If  you  look  along  the  right-hand  side  of  the  Hin- 
nom valley,  the  most  interesting  spot  is  at  the 
farther  end,  near  the  Mount  of  Offence.  That  is  a 
notable  field  which  you  see  there,  for  that  blasted 
tree  that  stands  in  its  midst  is  the  lineal  descendant 
of  the  tree  on  which  Judas  hanged  himself.  That 
field  is  the  Field  of  Blood,  and  the  hill  on  which  it 
lies  is  the  Hill  of  Evil  Counsel.    There,  on  the 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

Wednesday  of  Passion  Week,  while  our  Lord  was 
resting  quietly  at  Bethany  for  the  last  time  before 
His  betrayal  and  crucifixion,  the  Scribes  and  Phari- 
sees took  counsel  with  Judas  to  put  Him  to  death. 

Proceeding  southwards  on  the  way  to  Bethlehem 
a  hiU  rises  in  front  of  us,  and  on  the  left-hand  side 
stands  a  stone  castellated  building,  a  magnificent 
monument  to  Christian  charity,  the  English 
Ophthalmic  Hospital,  where  all  sufferers  from 
diseases  of  the  eye  in  the  neighbourhood  come  to 
be  freely  nursed  and  cured. 

On  the  right-hand  side  are  long  lines  of  low  alms- 
houses, built  by  Sir  Moses  Montefiore,  for  the  relief 
of  the  indigent  Jews  of  Jerusalem. 

As  we  toil  up  the  hill,  a  mile  or  so  along  the  road, 
we  see  a  fountain  in  the  wall,  on  the  left-hand  side. 
This  is  said  to  be  the  memorable  spot  where  the 
Wise  Men  from  the  East,  passing  from  Jerusalem 
out  of  the  Jaffa  Gate  and  going  to  Bethlehem  to 
find  Him  who  was  bom  King  of  the  Jews,  saw 
the  star  they  had  beheld  in  the  East  re-appear,  and 
go  before  them  and  stand  over  where  the  young 
Child  was.  We  now  proceed  rapidly  down  the 
long  slope,  with  the  white  houses  and  towers  of 
Bethlehem  appearing  over  the  low  hills  to  the  left. 
At  the  bottom  the  road  forks,  the  left-hand  branch 
going  to  the  town,  the  other  one  straight  on  to 
Hebron  and  Egypt.  At  this  fork  some  3,600 
years  ago  Rachel  died. 

Here,    just    at    this    place,  by  the     right-hand 

side  of   the   road    after    coming  down    this    steep 

hill  on  the  camels,  in  a  tent  hastily  pitched,  the 

much-loved  wife  died  in  giving  birth  to  Benjamin. 

S 


BETHLEHEM,   OR  THE   BIRTH  OF  CHRIST 

Jacob  here  put  up  a  pillar,  and  over  that  pillar  was 
put  a  small  building,  a  white  sepulchre,  and  Rachel's 
tomb  is  here  to  this  day.  There  is  little  doubt  that 
this  is  the  very  spot  where  she  passed  away. 

Let  us  turn  now  to  the  left  up  the  short  hill, 
and  we  come  to  the  Western  Gate  of  Bethlehem. 
By  that  gate  is  still  the  very  well  where  David 
sent  three  mighty  men  through  the  hosts  of  the 
Philistines  to  draw  water  for  him,  but  when  they 
brought  it  he  thought  it  too  precious  to  drink,  and 
Jie  poured  it  out  an  offering  before  the  Lord. 

We  proceed  through  Bethlehem,  along  the  crooked, 
narrow,  shady  streets,  leaving  the  Church  of  the 
Nativity  on  the  left,  and  we  come  to  the  brow  of  the 
hill,  and  standing  on  this  eastern  summit,  with  the 
town  behind  us,  we  have  in  front  a  long  valley,  and 
from  our  feet  a  green  slope  leading  down  to  it.  You 
may  not  know  how  rare  a  colour  green  is  in  Judea, 
for  the  country  is  nearly  all  grey  for  miles  around. 
Here  it  is  green,  like  English  turf,  and  here  are 
the  rich  pastures  in  front,  where  the  shepherds 
watched  over  their  flocks  by  night  when  Jesus 
was  born  in  Bethlehem.  On  the  left-hand  side,  at 
the  end  of  the  valley,  three  miles  from  where  we 
stand,  is  the  small  grey  village  of  the  shepherds, 
where  they  lived  then,  and  where  their  successors 
live  now. 

On  the  right-hand  side,  in  the  extreme  distance, 
you  see  a  yellow  patch  in  the  valley.  Those  are  the 
only  cornfields  that  have  ever  existed,  so  far  as  we 
know,  in  this  part  of  Judea.  These  were  the  fields 
of  Boaz,  and  on  this  very  spot  corn  is  grown  to-day. 
Beyond,  over  the  grey  hills  of  Judea,  you  see,  some 
9 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

thirty  miles  away,  the  bhie  mountains  of  Moab,  over 
which  Ruth  and  Naomi  came  to  glean  the  ears  of 
barley  in  these  very  fields,  and  here  Ruth  met  Boaz. 
She  found  favour  in  his  eyes,  and  you  remember 
how  he  offered  her  marriage,  as  the  Jewish  custom 
was,  when  her  nearest  of  kin  refused  to  take  her. 
Boaz  then  claimed  the  right  and  married  the 
Moabitess. 

Who  was  Boaz  ?  He  was  the  great  Sheik  of 
Bethlehem,  the  leading  man  there.  His  grand- 
father, Nahshon,  used  to  carry  the  Standard  of  the 
Lion  of  the  Tribe  of  Judah  and  command  all  the 
hosts  of  Judah  in  the  battle — the  Lion,  which  is  now 
on  our  Royal  Standard,  so  near  are  we  interlinked 
with  these  bygone  stories. 

The  father  of  Boaz  was  called  Salmon  and  married 
Rahab,  who  was  saved  alive  at  the  siege  of  Jericho. 
Boaz  was  their  son,  a  notable  man,  and  a  man  of 
large  possessions.  His  house  was  a  little  below  the 
gate  of  the  city,  on  our  left ;  in  fact,  it  was  just 
where  the  Church  of  the  Nativity  is  now,  a  little 
down  the  hill  and  on  the  farther  side  of  the  town  from 
where  we  stand.  And  here  was  the  house  of  Boaz, 
where  Boaz  and  Ruth  lived  together,  and  here  Obed, 
their  son,  was  bom.  There  Obed  married  and  lived  ; 
and  there  his  son  Jesse  was  bom,  and  there,  in  turn, 
Jesse's  son  David  was  bom.  And  after  David  be- 
came King,  the  house  passed  into  his  possession.  He 
reigned  seven  years  at  Hebron  and  then  came  to 
Jemsalem.  When  he  was  driven  out  of  the  city  by 
his  cruel  son  Absalom,  under  evil  counsel,  an  old 
man  in  Gilead,  seventy  miles  away,  called  Barzillai, 
showed  him  great  kindness.     So  when  David  came 


BKIHLEHEM. 


BETHLEHEM,  OR  THE   BIRTH  OF  CHRIST 

back  to  Jerasalem  he  wanted  to  pay  his  debt  of 
gratitude,  and  he  sent  for  him  and  said,  "  Come  and 
hve  with  me  at  Jerusalem."  But  Barzillai  said  he 
was  too  old,  and  sent  his  son  Chimham.  Chimham 
came  and  was  given  for  his  own  possession  David's 
house  in  Bethlehem.  So  it  became,  in  course 
of  time,  the  house  of  Chimham.  It  is  to  this  house 
I  now  wish  to  direct  your  attention.  This  was 
the  house  of  Boaz,  as  I  have  said,  a  httle  below 
the  gate,  where  Boaz  and  Ruth  lived,  and  their 
descendants,  Obed,  Jesse  and  David  ;  and  then  it 
passed  to  Chimham.  When  he  died,  it  appears  to 
have  become  an  inn  or  a  khan.  It  was  a  usual  thing 
for  the  rich  man  of  the  district  to  give  a  khan  to  the 
village.  It  was  considered  a  good  act,  like  the 
giving  of  a  hospital  or  a  park  in  the  present  day. 
And  this  khan  or  inn  of  Bethlehem  was  originally 
the  house  of  Chimham,  and  after  his  death  it  was 
called  the  Habitation,  or  Inn  of  Chimham. 

Then  followed  the  chequered  history  of  the  Kings 
of  Judah  and  Israel,  and  in  later  years,  when  Nebu- 
chadnezzar had  laid  Jerusalem  waste,  there  was  just 
a  remnant  of  poor  people  left  tilling  the  ground  under 
a  man  called  Gedaliah.  The  chief  of  the  people 
was  called  Johanan,  and  amongst  them  were  two 
prophets  ;  one  was  Jeremiah  and  the  other  was 
Baruch.  A  man  called  Ishmael  rose  up  and  took 
Jeremiah  captive.  Johanan  rescued  him  with  some 
difficulty,  and  then  fled  with  some  hundreds,  if  not 
thousands,  of  people  to  Egypt,  leaving  their  afflicted 
country  altogether.  Johanan,  taking  Jeremiah  and 
Baruch  with  him,  fled  down  by  the  way  of  Bethlehem, 
where  they  haHed  at  the  Inn  of  Chimham,  that  being 
II 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

the  place  where  they  could  get  camels  and  every- 
thing necessary  for  the  journey  to  Egypt.  However, 
like  many  of  us,  after  they  had  made  up  their  minds 
what  to  do,  they  thought  it  would  be  no  harm  to 
seek  God's  will  in  the  matter,  and  so  they  asked 
Jeremiah  if  he  would  pray,  and  inquire  if  they  should 
go  to  Eg3^t  or  not  ;  the  sequel  showed,  however,  that 
they  were  determined  to  act  in  defiance  of  God's 
will.  Jeremiah  took  ten  days,  and  at  the  end  of 
that  time  he  told  them  that  they  were  not  to  go  to 
Egypt,  but  were  to  return  to  the  land  whence  they 
came.  This  they  utterly  refused  to  do,  rejecting 
the  counsel  of  God,  whereupon  Jeremiah  said  they 
should  not  see  the  land  any  more.  And  they  did 
not.  They  went  on  down  into  Egypt,  taking 
Jeremiah  and  Baruch  with  them,  and  none  of 
them  ever  saw  the  hills  of  Judah  again. 

And  now  a  silence  falls  over  the  Khan  of  Chim- 
ham,  the  Inn  of  Bethlehem.  We  hear  no  more 
about  it  until  just  1,904  years  ago  this  last  Christmas 
Day,  when  Jesus  was  bom  of  Mary  in  the  rock  stable 
of  this  very  inn.  Jesus,  great  David's  greater  Son, 
was  born  in  David's  house,  the  house  of  Boaz,  the 
house  of  Ruth.  There  can  be  little  doubt  of  this 
fact  to  those  who  have  not  only  studied  the  Bible 
generally,  but  pondered  carefully  the  small  allusions 
to  the  situation  of  the  house  of  Boaz,  and  com- 
pared it  with  the  site  of  the  Church  of  the  Nativity 
as  it  stands  to-day.  They  agree  perfectly,  and  it 
is  almost  certain  that  when  you  look  down  at  that 
silver  star  in  the  floor  of  the  rock  stable,  you  stand 
by  the  absolute  spot  where  the  Saviour  entered 
the  world. 

12 


BETHLEHEM,   OR  THE   BIRTH  OF  CHRIST 

Now,  that  is  the  story  of  Bethlehem,  but  before 
we  leave  it  let  us  pass  across  the  hills  of  Moab  and 
look  at  the  interesting  scene  pictured  in  the  simple 
verses  of  the  first  chapter  of  the  book  of  Ruth. 

Naomi,  a  widow,  bereft  of  her  sons  and  her 
husband,  living  away  in  Moab,  determined  to 
return  to  Bethlehem  when  she  heard  that  the  famine 
was  over.     So 

"  She  went  forth  out  of  the  place  where  she  was,  and  her 
two  daughters-in-law  with  her  ;  and  they  went  on  the  way 
to  return  unto  the  land  of  J  udah.  And  Naomi  said  unto  her 
two  daughters-in-law,  Go,  return  each  to  her  mother's 
house  :  the  Lord  deal  kindly  with  you,  as  ye  have  dealt 
with  the  dead  and  with  me.  .  .  .  And  they  said  unto 
her.  Surely  we  will  return  with  thee  unto  thy  people.  And 
Naomi  said,  Turn  again  my  daughters  :  why  will  ye  go 
with  me  ?  .  .  .  And  they  Ufted  up  their  voice,  and  wept 
again  :  and  Orpah  kissed  her  mother-in-law,  but  Ruth 
clave  unto  her.  And  she  said,  Behold  thy  sister-in-law  is 
gone  back  unto  her  people,  and  unto  her  gods  :  return  thou 
after  thy  sister-in-law.  And  Ruth  said,  Intreat  me  not  to 
leave  thee  or  to  return  from  following  after  thee  :  for 
whither  thou  goest,  I  wUl  go  ;  and  where  thou  lodgest,  I 
will  lodge  ;  thy  people  shall  be  my  people,  and  thy  God  my 
God.  Where  thou  diest,  will  I  die,  and  there  will  I  be 
buried  ;  the  Lord  do  so  to  me,  and  more  also,  if  aught  but 
death  part  thee  and  me." 

Here  in  the  lives  of  these  two  girls  we  see  what  so 
often  comes  in  our  lives— the  parting  of  the  two 
ways— the  one  leading  to  the  right  and  the  other  to 
the  left.  And  how  often  the  whole  future  of  our 
lives,  unknown  to  us,  depends  on  which  of  those 
two  turnings  we  take  !  The  two  went  up  together 
to  a  certain  point ;  they  both  wept  ;  they  both 
professed  their  love  of  Naomi ;  but  when  it  came 
13 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

to  the  crucial  test  which  decided  their  future,  Orpah 
kissed  her  mother-in-law  and  went  back  to  her 
country  and  to  her  gods,  while  Ruth  clave  to  this 
poor  broken-down  widow  and  saw  in  her  a  greater 
attraction,  a  greater  power  than  the  whole  of  her 
friends,  the  whole  of  her  country,  and  the  whole  of 
her  gods.  She  readily  turned  her  back  upon  these 
three  for  the  sake  of  this  desolate,  broken-hearted 
widow.  To  us  this  is  a  parable  pregnant  with 
meaning.  These  things  were  written  aforetime  for 
our  instruction. 

The  same  thing  occurs  at  some  time  or  other  in  all 
our  lives.  There  is  no  man  or  woman  who  has 
never  heard  the  voice  of  God.  He  has  spoken  to  us 
at  various  times  and  in  different  ways,  but  there  are 
special  occasions  which  stand  out  from  the  rest. 
Some  of  us  can  remember  when  the  issue  of  our  lives 
depended  upon  whether  we  hstened  to  that  Voice 
or  not.  Such  an  occasion  came  when  that  rich 
farmer,  returning  from  his  haystacks  and  his  barns, 
which  he  was  going  to  puU  down  and  increase  in  size 
owing  to  the  fertility  of  his  crops,  suddenly  felt  a 
check  as  he  was  entering  his  house.  All  you  would 
have  seen  was  a  blanching  of  the  face  and  a  momen- 
tary hesitation,  and  then  he  passed  on  into  the  house 
to  his  supper  and  to  his  bed  and  to  his  end.  A  most 
commonplace  occurrence,  but  in  that  eventful 
moment  God  had  spoken  to  the  man  and  he  had  not 
hstened.  The  Bible  says,  "  God  said,  Thou  fool, 
this  night  thy  soul  shaU  be  required  of  thee."  Do 
you  think  God  has  ceased  speaking  ?  Do  you 
think  God  is  now  silent  ?  No  !  God  speaks  now 
as  He  did  then,  and  He  spoke  then  as  He  does  now. 
14 


BETHLEHEM,   OR  THE    BIRTH   OF  CHRIST 

It  was  not  that  the  man  saw  a  Form  coming,  and 
heard  a  Voice  saying  those  words  to  him.  If  you 
had  asked  him  he  would  have  said,  "  Dear  me, 
a  thought  just  struck  me  ;  it  flashed  across  me  what 
a  fool  I  am."  Whence  was  that  thought  that  came 
across  him  ?  WTiat  struck  him  ?  The  Voice  of 
God! 

I  think  we  have  httle  idea  how  often  in  our  inner 
thoughts,  in  the  suggestions  that  spring  to  us  deep 
out  of  our  own  unconsciousness  we  hear  the  Voice 
of  the  Almighty.  And  it  is  a  great  thing  at  a 
critical  time  to  be  able  to  make  the  right  decision. 
This  is  the  point.  What  was  there  about  Ruth 
superior  to  Orpah  that  enabled  her  at  the  crucial 
moment,  though  she  did  not  know  it  herself,  to 
make  a  right  decision  which  influenced  the  whole  of 
her  future  life,  which  brought  her  into  unexpected 
possessions  and  privileges,  and  made  her  one  of  the 
direct  progenitors  of  the  Son  of  God  ?  What 
was  it  ? 

Well,  that  is  what  I  want  to  explain  here.  Will 
you  let  me  just  turn  you  for  an  answer  to  St.  James 
ii.  12  :  "  So  speak  ye,  and  so  do,  as  they  that  shall 
be  judged  by  the  law  of  liberty." 

Now,  I  am  perfectly  convinced  that  if  one  were 
to  speak  to  Christians  on  this  and  nothing  else  for 
twelve  months,  there  would  still  be  numbers  who 
would  not  apprehend  and  really  grasp  what  is  meant 
by  this  extraordinary  phrase.  A  "  law  of  liberty  " 
on  the  face  of  it  contains  a  contradiction  in  terms. 
Where  there  is  law  there  is  no  liberty,  and  where 
there  is  liberty  there  is  no  law.  If  I  am  under  a 
law  to  conclude  this  address  at  a  certain  fixed 
15 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

moment,  I  have  no  liberty  to  carry  it  on  beyond 
then  ;  but  if  there  be  no  such  law,  then  I  have 
liberty  in  the  matter — which  I  may  say  I  will  not 
abuse.  But  at  any  rate,  where  there  is  liberty  there 
is  no  law,  and  where  there  is  no  law  there  is  liberty. 
They  mutally  exclude  each  other.  Let  me  illustrate 
this.  There  are,  according  to  the  Bible,  three  classes 
of  people  in  this  world — the  Jews,  the  Gentiles,  and 
the  Church  of  God,  or  Christians.  The  Gentiles 
Kipling  speaks  of  as  the  lesser  tribes  without  the 
law.  The  Gentiles  are  without  law.  They  have 
got  liberty  but  no  law.  The  Jew  has  law  but  no 
liberty.  The  Christian  has  the  law  of  liberty. 
What  then  is  it  ?  Here  are  these  three  classes  of 
people.  One  has  liberty  and  no  law,  another  has 
law  and  no  liberty,  and  the  Christian  differs  from 
either  in  having  a  new  thing  that  is  unlike  both, 
that  never  was  in  the  world  before — the  law  of 
liberty.  What  is  that  ?  It  is  certainly  not  the 
ten  commandments,  for  that  law  leads  to  bondage  ; 
but  what  is  it  ? 

Well  now,  let  me  again  use  an  illustration  that  I 
have  found  of  great  value.  There  are  three  sorts  of 
dogs  in  London.  There  is  the  dog  that  has  got 
liberty  without  law  ;  there  is  the  dog  that  has  got 
law  without  liberty  ;  and  there  is  the  dog  that  knows 
the  meaning  of  the  law  of  hberty  ;  for  allow  me  to 
tell  you  that  this  principle  descends  to  the  lowest, 
as  well  as  rises  to  the  highest. 

The  dog  which  has  got  liberty  and  no  law  is  the 

stray  dog,  the  strange  dog,  which  owns  no  master 

and  has  no  home,  but  runs  about  London,  having 

perhaps  in  his  own  estimation  a  very  good  time, 

10 


BETHLEHEM,   OR  THE    BIRTH   OF  CHRIST 

though  in  imminent  danger  of  being  caught  by  the 
poUce  and  hurried  off  to  Battersea  and  having  his 
career  brought  to  a  violent  end.  Everywhere, 
liberty  without  law  is  a  position  of  danger.  It  means 
licence  ;  it  means  indulgence  ;  it  means  recklessness  ; 
to  men  it  means — being  without  God  in  the  world. 
Hundreds  and  thousands  of  young  men  and  women 
come  up  to  London  every  year  who  have  liberty 
and  no  law.  They  may  lead,  in  their  own  estima- 
tion, a  merry  and  a  fast  life,  but  it  is  a  short  one  ; 
for  'J.  they  act  without  restraint  they  only  abuse 
their  liberty,  and  soon  go  under  and  are  heard  of  no 
more.  So  that  liberty  without  law  is  in  itself  a 
position  of  danger.  The  opposite  to  it,  of  course,  is 
law  without  liberty,  which  is  a  position  of  safety. 
There  is  no  danger  in  the  possession  of  law  without 
liberty  ;  but  at  the  same  time  there  is  not  much 
happiness  in  it.  And  that  is  the  position  which  so 
many  Christians  occupy,  and  that  is  the  fundamental 
cause  why  they  get  so  little  pleasure  out  of  their 
Christianity.  That  is  the  real,  though  unsuspected, 
reason  of  it. 

Now,  what  is  law  without  liberty?  Well,  take 
the  dog  again.  I  had  a  valuable  collie  which  now 
lies  buried  in  the  little  cemetery  in  Hyde  Park  by 
the  Victoria  Gate.  When  he  first  of  all  came  up  to 
London  he  was  strange  ;  he  did  not  know  me  ;  he 
did  not  know  town  ;  he  wanted  to  run  about  here, 
there  and  everywhere.  Not  a  bit  of  it,  I  said.  No  ; 
you  are  to  have  law  and  no  liberty.  So  I  went 
and  bought  him  a  collar  and  a  strong  chain.  When- 
ever he  went  out  one  end  of  the  chain  was  in  some 
one's  hand,  and  the  other  was  fastened  on  to  his 
17  B 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

collar.  He  could  run  about  five  feet.  That  was 
the  end  of  his  liberty.  He  was  in  bondage.  If 
he  wanted  to  run  after  the  carriages  or  the  dogs. 
or  to  follow  any  one,  he  was  always  pulled  back  by 
the  chain.  No  liberty,  but  law,  for  his  own  safety. 
To  have  let  him  free  would  have  meant  his 
destruction.  He  would  not  only  have  been  lost, 
so  far  as  I  was  concerned,  but  he  would  have  been 
either  caught  by  the  police,  or  by  dog-stealers 
round  the  comer,  and  carried  off,  and  perhaps  an 
end  put  to  his  life.  Law  was  his  only  safety  ;  he 
could  not  have  liberty  because  he  did  not  under- 
stand how  to  use  it ;  he  did  not  know  the  law  of 
hberty.  So  he  had  law  without  liberty.  Now, 
that  is  the  position  of  many  Christians.  I  wonder 
if  there  are  any  this  afternoon  who  understand 
this  position,  and  who  can  say,  "  That  is  just  my 
case." 

I  was  reading  the  other  day  in  a  book  by  Samuel 
Smith,  M.P.,  a  description  of  the  barrack  system 
of  our  large  Poor-Law  schools.  He  shows  how 
two  thousand  children  or  more  are  herded  together, 
how  they  are  kept  clean  and  safe,  how  they  are 
washed  and  dressed,  but  what  a  grey  dulness  there  is 
over  them,  and  how  sometimes  they  are  not  even 
known  by  their  names,  but  only  by  their  numbers. 
He  says :  "  The  barrack  system  has  one  fatal 
defect — want  of  love.  Children  must  be  loved 
into  obedience." 

Now,  I  have  more  than  a  suspicion,  I  have  the 
knowledge,  that  a  large  bulk  of  Christian  people 
are  hving  in  this  barrack  system.  They  are  sur- 
rounded with  stone  walls,  mostly  of  their  own, 
iS 


BETHLEHEM,   OR  THE   BIRTH   OF  CHRIST 

or  their  friends'  devising,  which  say  in  effect,  "  You 
must  not  do  this,  and  you  must  not  do  that,  and 
you  must  not  do  the  other."  They  are  herded 
together  inside  these  walls.  They  are  clean  and 
they  are  fed  and  they  are  respectable,  but  there  is  a 
grey  dulness  over  them  all.  I  will  tell  you  why. 
It  is  because  they  are  not  at  home  ;  they  do  not  feel 
at  home.  There  is  not  that  warm  interchange  of 
love  between  parent  and  child  that  brightens  the 
eye,  and  quickens  the  footstep,  and  makes  Ufa 
one  continual  joy.  No  ;  it  is  an  institution,  a 
barrack  system.  They  are  clean,  respectable,  and 
Christian  people  ;  there  is  no  denying  it  ;  they  do 
not  do  anything  very  wrong.  But  they  are  in 
bondage  ;  they  have  not  got  the  joy,  they  have  not 
got  the  liberty,  that  breathes  in  the  spirit  of  true 
Christianity.     My  collie  had  no  liberty. 

But  there  came  a  day,  a  never-to-be-forgotten 
day  in  the  history  of  that  dog  when  I  felt  he 
could  be  treated  in  a  different  way.  To  his 
intense  surprise,  one  morning  I  unbuckled  the 
chain  when  he  got  out  of  doors,  and  I  said, 
"  Now  go  where  you  like."  "  Go  where  I  like  ! 
Off  I  go  and  you  never  see  me  any  more ! " 
No  !  I  knew  he  could  not  do  that  now.  The  dog 
bounded  away  down  the  road,  and  then  looked 
wistfully  up,  and  trotted  back  again.  There  he 
was  behind  my  heels.  He  tried  to  run  about,  but 
he  could  not  run  far,  because  I  had  got  his  heart. 
That  is  the  law  of  hberty.  If  you  had  seen  that 
dog  you  would  have  said  he  was  as  free  as  the  air. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  he  was  bound  by  a  stronger  chain 
than  any  sold  by  an  ironmonger  ;  he  was  bound  by 
19 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

the  invisible  chain  of  affection  to  me  and  he  could 
not  break  it.  I  could  walk  down  the  Bayswater 
Road  and  down  Regent  Street,  or  Oxford  Street, 
go  where  I  hked  and  do  what  I  liked,  and  had  no 
need  to  look  after  him.  There  is  nothing  so  affect- 
ing as  the  heart  of  a  dog.  When  he  gives  his  heart 
he  gives  it  all,  and  never,  never  can  he  take  it 
back.  A  dog  can  die  and  often  has  died  for  a 
loved  master,  but  he  can  never  break  the  chain  of 
love. 

Now  look  at  Ruth.  Was  she  not  rather  like  my 
collie  ?  "  Where  thou  goest  I  wiU  go  ;  thy  people 
shall  be  my  people  ;  where  thou  diest  will  I  die  and 
there  will  I  be  buried  :  the  Lord  do  so  to  me, 
and  more  also,  if  aught  but  death  part  thee  and 
me."  Is  not  that  like  a  dog's  heart  ?  Her  mind 
was  made  up  because  her  heart  was  gone  ;  it  was 
her  affection  that  governed  her  intellect.  It 
was  no  use  reasoning  with  her  and  saying,  "  That 
is  very  foolish  ;  it  is  much  wiser  to  go  back.*'  No, 
instinctively  she  chose  the  right  without  knowing 
why  she  did  it,  or  how.  But  we  know.  It  was  by 
the  law  of  love !  Oh  !  how  this  law  quickens  the 
wits,  and  gives  the  right  instinct  at  the  critical 
moment !  How  it  gave  it  to  her,  and  how  much 
she  got  by  it !  Yes,  what  governed  Ruth  was 
the  law  of  liberty  of  St.  James  ii.  12  :  "  So  speak 
ye,  and  so  do,  as  they  that  shall  be  judged  by  the 
law  of  liberty." 

Now,  what  is  it  we  want  here  this  afternoon  ? 

It  is  not  the  shghtest  good  your  coming  or  my 

coming  just  to  talk  together,  unless  we  can  really 

in  some  way  help  each  other.    What  is  it  we  want  ? 

20 


BETHLEHEM,   OR  THE   BIRTH  OF  CHRIST 

Where  is  the  screw  loose  in  our  Christianity  ? 
What  is  amiss  ?  Everywhere,  aU  over  this  country, 
there  have  been  for  the  last  twenty  years  meetings 
and  corventions,  large  and  small,  for  the  "  deepen- 
ing of  the  spiritual  life."  What  is  the  "  deepening 
of  the  spiritual  life  ?  "  Do  you  know  what  it  is  " 
Touching  God  !  That  is  the  whole  secret.  People 
work  themselves  into  a  great  state  and  rea^h  lofty 
pinnacles,  and  talk  of  surrendering  this,  that,  and 
the  other.  Surrendering  or  giving  up  is  not  the 
right  phrase  in  connexion  with  the  law  of  liberty. 
These  are  alien  words.  You  cannot  talk  of  sur- 
rendering this  and  that  to  your  Father.  No  ! 
It  is  an  affection  that  grows  up  day  by  day  as  you 
get  more  into  it.  It  is  an  interchange  of  thought 
and  love  until  you  know  His  desire  v^dthout  His 
ever  speaking.  "Be  ye  not  as  the  horse  or  as  the 
mule,  which  must  be  held  in  with  bit  and  bridle 
lest  they  come  near  unto  thee.  I  will  guide  thee 
with  mine  eye."  That  is  the  Divine  command. 
It  is  the  simplest  thing  on  earth. 

Now  let  us  read  one  short  message  from  Acts 
xvii.  24.  WTiy  were  we  created  ?  Why  are  men 
and  women  living  on  this  earth  at  all  ?  Have 
you  ever  answered  the  question  ?  Have  you  ever 
considered  the  words  of  this  discourse  ?  Let  me 
just  read  them  to  you,  omitting  what  is  not  rele- 
vant in  the  passage  from  St.  Paul's  wonderful 
sermon  on  Mar's  Hill. 

"  God  made  the  world  and  all  things  therein.  .  .  . 

made  of  one  blood   all  nations  of  men  .  .  .  that 

they  should   seek   the  Lord  " — that   is  what  we  are 

made  for — "  if  haply  they  might  feel  after  Him, 

21 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

and  find  Him,  though  He  be  not  far  from  every  one 
of  us." 

What  are  we  here  for  ?  To  feel  after  God.  How 
long  to  feel  ?  Until  we  touch  Him.  Do  you  not 
loiow  what  it  is  in  a  dark  room  to  suddenly  touch 
some  one  with  the  tips  of  your  fingers,  and  how  a 
thrill  runs  through  you  from  the  contact.  You 
can  so  touch  God.  That  is  the  very  image  St. 
Paul  uses — to  feel  after  God.  That  is  what  we 
are  sent  into  this  dark  world  for,  to  feel  after  God. 
How  long  ?  I  ask  again,  "  Until  we  find  Him." 
Will  that  be  long  ?  "  He  is  not  far  from  every  one 
of  us."  Have  you  felt  after  Him  and  touched  Him 
in  the  dark,  and  has  the  thrill  gone  through  yotc  ? 
If  so,  you  wiU  never  be  the  same  again,  for  yoahave 
touched  the  Almighty.  You  are  in  contact 
with  Infinite  Love  and  Infinite  Strength.  That 
is  what  it  means.  That  is  what  men  are  made 
for.  They  are  made  to  feel  after  God  and  to  touch 
Him  Wlio  is  not  far  from  any  one  of  them. 

What  we  really  touch  is  His  loving  heart,  and 
that  is  easiest  when  we  go  along  the  path  where 
that  love  has  been  shown  in  the  gift  of  His  Son. 
He  is  the  Way,  and  none  can  come  to  the  Father 
save  by  Him.  He  that  sees  Hmi  has  seen  the 
Father,  and  whoso  touches  the  hem  of  His 
garment  by  faith,  touches  God  and  reaches  His 
heart. 

But  the  crowd  may  throng  and  press  and  yet  not 
reach  God.  There  may  be  souls  in  this  room  so 
near  to  God  that  they  could  not  be  nearer  without 
touching,  and  yet  they  know  it  not.  Have  you 
never   seen    a  blind  man  pass  some  one  so  near 

24 


BETHLEHEM.  OR  THE   BIRTH  OF  CHRIST 

that  there  is  only  a  hair's  breadth  between  them  ? 
If  he  put  out  his  hand  ever  so  httle  they  would 
touch,  but  the  friend  goes  by,  and  he  does  not 
know  how  near  they  have  been  together.  So  we 
pass  by  God  and  never  know  how  near  He  is, 
because  there  is  not  the  touch.  What  stops  the 
touch  ?  The  smallest  thing,  just  as  the  thinnest 
film  will  stop  the  current  coming  to  the  electric  light. 

The  world,  religion,  doctrines,  indifference,  eager- 
ness after  other  things — there  are  a  hundred  things. 
You  can  put  religious  doctrines  in  the  place  of  God 
and  touch  them  all,  and  handle  them  with  great 
familiarity,  and  yet  never  touch  God. 

I  will  tell  you  one  thing.  If  we  have  touched  God 
we  love  God  from  that  moment  better  than  the 
world.  Now  you  know  we  may  make  a  loud  pro- 
fession, but  it  is  no  use  being  shams  and  h5rpocrites, 
and  there  are  many  Christians,  I  was  going  to  say, 
who  love  the  world  better  than  God  ;  but  at  any 
rate,  God  is  not  first  in  their  souls  before  the  world. 
But  when  they  have  touched  Him  no  further  effort 
is  needed  ;  He  conquers.  That  is  the  law  of  hberty. 
I  did  not  go  with  a  big  whip  and  hoarse  voice  shout- 
ing to  my  dog  and  lashing  him  to  my  heels.  I  kept 
him  under  law  until  I  knew  I  had  got  his  heart,  but 
when  I  had  got  his  heart  there  was  no  driving  to 
heel.  He  loved  me  better  than  all  the  world,  and 
he  could  not  help  it  either.  If  we  know  God  we 
love  Him  better  than  the  world,  we  love  Him  bettei 
than  religion,  and,  more  still,  we  love  Him  better 
than  our  Bibles.  Now,  to  a  Christian  that  seems 
almost  impossible.  His  Bible  is  the  thing  he  clasps 
to  his  heart ;  he  reads  it  day  and  night,  and  in  the 
2  , 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

law  of  the  Lord  is  his  dehght.  Yes,  but  he  has  a 
greater  delight  in  the  Lord  than  even  in  the  Law 
of  the  Lord.  God  Himself  is  even  more  than 
His  Word.  I  have  known  in  many  instances  the 
letter  of  this  Book  to  so  fiU  the  mind,  and  nice 
questions  with  regard  to  it  so  disturb  the  thoughts 
(though  it  cannot  be  too  much  studied)  that  God 
is  obscured  rather  than  revealed.  There  may  be 
much  religious  knowledge  and  yet  God  Himself 
not  be  known  in  the  fulness  of  His  Love.  But  such 
personal  knowledge  is  within  the  reach  of  any  one 
of  us.^  We  are  all  placed  here  for  the  purpose  of 
obtaining  it.  Let  us  remember  as  we  close  those 
words  of  St.  Paul :  "  He  hath  made  of  one  blood 
all  nations  of  the  earth,  that  they  should  seek  the 
Lord,  if  haply  they  might  feel  after  Him  and  find 
Him  (touch  Him),  though  He  be  not  far  from  every 
one  of  us." 

*  See  The  Knowledge  of  God,  its  Meaning  ^nd  its  Power. 
(A.  T.  Schofield).    Hodder  &  Stoughton. 


94 


SECOND  ADDRESS 

Nazareth,   or  the  Life  of  Christ 

TO-DAY  I  have  to  tell  the  story  of  Nazareth, 
or  the  Life  of  Christ.  It  would  appear  that 
the  father  and  mother  of  the  Virgin  had  left  the 
comparatively  barren  country  of  Judea  sometime 
in  their  early  history  for  the  green  hills  and  valleys 
of  Galilee,  as  so  many  dwellers  in  Judea  did  at  that 
time.  Palestine  is  most  fertile  in  the  north,  but 
becomes  barren  as  one  passes  south.  Galilee  is  very 
fruitful ;  Samaria  less  so  ;  while  Judea  is  almost 
entirely  sterile.  That  little  valley  by  Bethlehem 
that  I  described  in  the  first  address  is  an  exception, 
and  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful  in  the  whole 
country  of  Southern  Palestine. 

The  father  and  mother  of  the  Virgin  moved 
northwards,  attracted  also,  doubtless,  by  the  extra- 
ordinary amount  of  Greek  and  Roman  civilization 
in  Galilee,  of  which  most  Bible  students  know  but 
little.  The  cities,  the  traffic,  the  whole  atmosphere 
of  large  parts  of  Galilee  at  this  time  were  Greek  ; 
the  roads  were  Roman,  the  Government  was  Roman, 
and  the  whole  country  was  in  a  most  prosperous 
condition.  This  change  of  residence  might  be 
paralleled  by  the  migration  of  some  peasants  from 
25 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

the  West  of  Ireland  say  into  Kent,  or  some  other 
prosperous    district    in    England. 

Nazareth,  though  fertile,  is  the  most  obscure  place 
that  is  named  in  Scripture.  It  is  never  mentioned  in 
the  Bible  with  the  exception  of  the  allusions  to  it  in 
the  New  Testament.  It  is  found  in  no  Jewish  writ- 
ings ;  it  has  no  Jewish  name  at  aU,  Nazareth  being 
a  Greek  word.  It  is  an  obscmre  village,  out  of  the 
highways  and  byways  of  men,  completely  isolated, 
and  connected  with  no  history  either  of  war  or  of 
conquest,  or  of  anything  of  note  whatever.  Here  the 
Virgin's  parents  hved  with  their  yoimg  daughter 
until  she  became  betrothed  to  an  elderly  man 
called  Joseph,  a  jobbing  village  carpenter,  of  Naza- 
reth. We  know  the  history  of  how  our  Lord  was 
born  in  Bethlehem  in  the  house  of  David,  and  also 
how,  after  going  to  Egypt,  his  parents  brought  Him 
to  Nazareth. 

The  exact  composition  of  the  household  seems  a 
Httle  doubtful.  It  would  appear  that  Marian,  that 
is  the  Virgin  whom  we  caU  Mary,  had  a  half-sister 
who  was  truly  called  Mary,  the  wife  of  Cleophas, 
who  had  several  children,  probably  four  sons  and 
at  least  three  daughters  ;  these  would  be  then  the 
cousins  of  our  Lord.  Others  think  that  they  were 
the  children  of  Joseph  by  a  former  wife,  and  they 
would  then  be  half  brothers  and  sisters  to  our  Lord. 
Be  that  as  it  may,  at  any  rate  the  household  at 
Nazareth  seems  to  have  comprised  our  Lord,  His 
mother,  and  at  least  seven  others.  There  seems 
little  doubt  that  Christ  was  the  youngest  of  the 
family  when  His  parents  came  to  Uve  in  Nazareth. 

Let  us  try  for  a  moment  to  picture  a  httle  of  His 
26 


NAZARETH,  OR  THE  LHE  OF  CHRIST 

surroundings  there.  Nazareth  can  best  be  doscribed 
as  a  saucer,  a  mile  across,  full  of  fruit  and  flowers 
and  sun  ;  a  saucer,  not  a  cup ;  a  shallow,  not  a  deep, 
depression  in  the  hills,  the  bottom  of  the  saucer 
being  probably  a  thousand  feet  above  the  sea  ;  so 
that  we  have  to  imagine  an  upland  hollow  almost  a 
perfect  circle,  the  rim  made  of  some  thirteen  little 
hills  of  almost  even  height  and  enclosing  a  fertile 
district  a  mile  across,  full  of  figs,  ohves,  pomegra- 
nates, com,  and  every  sort  of  flower  glowang  in  the 
bright  Syrian  sun.  There  are  vines  on  all  the  hill- 
sides, very  much  like  those  on  the  banks  of  the 
Rhine  ;  and  in  the  ravines  large  mulberry  trees 
and  other  vegetation.  The  flowers  are  really 
innumerable,  every  field  is  full  of  them  right  up  to 
the  very  rim  of  the  saucer,  and  then  just  at  the  top 
there  is  a  little  bareness,  where  a  sort  of  short 
heather  grows  on  the  higher  summits. 

Now  imagine  resting  on  the  northern  slope  of 
this  hollow  with  a  southern  aspect,  a  small  and 
irregular  grey  village  about  half  way  up,  and 
you  see  Nazareth.  Here  our  Lord  hved  for  thirty 
years  with  His  brothers  and  His  sisters  in  the 
house  of  Mary,  Joseph  probably  dying  sometime 
during  His  early  hfe,  we  do  not  exactly  know 
when.  His  home  lay  a  Httle  to  the  right  of  the 
village,  as  far  as  we  can  tell,  while  the  carpenter's 
workshop  was  in  the  middle  of  the  bazaar  ; 
for  in  Nazareth  the  workshops  were  never  (as 
depicted  in  mediaeval  art)  in  the  dwelling-house. 
In  the  midst  of  the  village  at  its  upper  edge  was  the 
one  fountain  which  supplied  the  whole  of  Nazareth 
with  a  most  copio'is  flow  of  Uving,  or  springing, 
27 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

water.  Our  Lord  must  have  walked  there  by 
the  side  of  His  mother  as  a  Httle  boy,  hundreds 
of  times  as  she  went  with  her  five-gallon  pitcher 
poised  on  her  head  (a  custom  which  gives  the 
women  of  Nazareth  the  best  figures  in  Palestine), 
to  and  from  the  spring  for  the  water  required 
for  the  household  every  day.  And  then  as  He  grew 
older  He  would  join  His  father  in  his  trade. 

I  should  like  to  say  a  word  about  that  trade  here, 
because  afterwards  our  Lord  succeeded  His  father 
in  it,  and  at  Joseph's  death  Himself  became  a 
carpenter.  Now,  the  carpenter  in  Palestine  was 
not  confined  to  making  articles  in  the  workshop, 
but  went  about  the  village  repairing  doors  and  win- 
dows, going  sometimes  as  far  as  the  lake,  twenty-five 
miles  off,  to  repair  boats,  and  make  masts  and  oars. 
He  also  made  yokes  for  the  oxen,  tables,  chairs, 
and  wooden  utensils,  so  that  there  would  be  hardly 
a  house  in  which  Jesus  would  not  be  known  by 
virtue  of  His  work. 

But  we  must  remember  that  there  was  this 
about  the  carpenter's  trade  :  it  did  not  really 
form  a  part  of  Christ's  humiliation  as  man ; 
though  of  course  it  did  if  we  think  of  Him  as  God. 
Though  our  Lord  was  bom  in  a  humble  sphere 
of  hfe,  it  was  no  further  humiliation  to  become  a 
carpenter,  because  the  occupation  of  a  carpenter 
was  one  of  the  few  honourable  trades  in  Palestine. 
If  a  man  were  a  carpenter,  he  could  be  chosen  as 
High  Priest ;  whereas  if  he  were  a  tanner  or  a 
weaver  or  a  hairdresser,  or  an  ordinary  shop-keeper, 
no  Priest  could  be  chosen  from  his  rank  ;  while  if  he 
were,  like  David  or  Amos,  a  keeper  of  flocks  or  herds, 
28 


NAZARETH,  OR  THE  LIFE  OF  CHRIST 

he  reached  the  verj^  lowest  ranks  of  degradation. 
So  that  the  trade  of  a  carpenter  was  amongst  the 
higher  callings  in  Palestine  ;  and  would  be  almost 
equal  to  that  of  a  lawyer  or  barrister  here.  At  any 
rate,  it  was  possible  for  a  carpenter  to  reach  the 
highest  position.  It  appears  that  our  Lord  followed 
this  trade  for  well  nigh  thirty  years  in  the  village 
and  district  round. 

It  might  be  thought,  considering  His  wonderful 
mission,  that  to  be  buried  in  a  Httle  flowery 
hollow  in  the  hills,  as  He  was  at  Nazareth, 
was  not  the  best  training  in  the  world  for  the 
Saviour  ;  because  He  would  be  shut  out  of  all  the 
busy  world  of  men  and  see  nothing  of  what  was 
going  on,  in  fact,  know  nothing  really  of  Palestine 
itself.  But  there  is  this  peculiarity  about  Nazareth, 
that  just  about  twenty-minutes  walk  from  the  house 
where  our  Lord  lived  there  is  the  top  of  a  heather- 
clad  hiU,  1, 600  feet  above  the  sea,  nearly  as  high 
as  the  great  range  of  Mount  Carmel.  There  is  no 
doubt  whatever  our  Lord  must  have  spent  hundreds 
of  hours  on  this  wonderful  and  solitary  spot,  and  as 
those  in  the  village  do  still  who  wish  for  quiet  and 
meditation.  Here,  away  from  the  taunts  of  His 
brethren,  who  "  did  not  beheve  in  Him  "—and  what 
a  home  tragedy  is  wrapped  up  in  that  phrase— He 
could  not  only  commune  alone  with  God,  but  quietly 
survey  the  wonderful  panorama  around  Him. 

Let  us  place  ourselves  here  for  a  moment,  and 
just  consider  what  Christ  saw.  Stand  on  this  sum- 
mit where  Jesus  stood  scores  of  times  and  look  due 
north,  with  your  back  to  Nazareth.  On  the  left 
hand,  four  miles  away.  He  would  gaze  on  the  brilliant 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

Greek  city  of  Sepphoris,  which  was  the  capital  of 
Galilee,  whilst  He  was  living  in  Nazareth  :  it  has 
now  passed  away  ;  though  so  well  known,  its  name 
is  never  mentioned  in  the  Bible.  There  were 
several  of  these  cities  in  Palestine,  brilliant  with 
Greek  temples  and  Greek  baths  and  theatres  and 
Greek  civilization  and  Greek  gods  ;  but  in  not  one 
of  them  did  Christ  ever  spend  a  night  or  do  a 
miracle  ;  and  with  two  exceptions,  none  of  them  are 
named  in  Scripture.  He  simply  passed  them  by. 
He  was  sent  to  the  lost  sheep  of  the  House  of  Israel, 
and  we  hardly  realize  how  wonderfully  He  kept  to 
His  mission  unless  we  grasp  the  fact  that  Greek 
civilization  had  at  that  time  spread  over  the  whole 
of  Galilee.  On  the  right,  four  miles  away,  a  great 
contrast  met  His  eye — the  little  dirty  grey  village 
of  Cana  of  Galilee,  where  when  the  hour  was  come  He 
would  perform  His  first  miracle  of  turning  water 
into  wine.  How  often,  with  His  omniscience, 
must  He  have  looked  upon  that  little  village  where 
He  was  going  in  a  very  short  time  to  set  His  seal 
on  the  rite  of  marriage  and  His  blessing  on  the 
simple  joys  of  life.  In  front  of  Him,  high  above  the 
Httle  hills  and  twenty-four  miles  distant,  but  looking 
only  about  ten  miles  away,  was  a  bare  rock,  and  on 
the  top  a  very  white  town  called  Safed.  That  is  the 
"  city  set  on  a  hiU  "  of  His  parables  that  "  could  not 
be  hid  "  ;  and  over  and  above  it,  at  a  distance  of  some 
sixty  miles,  were  the  majestic  snows  of  Hermon. 

If  the  Lord  then  turned  a  Uttle  round  toward  the 

east,  He  would  see  the  dip  in  the  land  where  at  the 

bottom  lay  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  more  than  2,000  feet 

below  where  He  was  standing.      He  could  not  see 

30 


NAZARETH,    OR    THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

the  lake,  but  the  hills  where  Capernaum  lav.  twenty 
miles  away,  were  plainly  visible.  Then,  as  He  turned 
due  east,  IMount  Tabor,  only  five  miles  away,  where 
He  was  going  to  be  transfigured  and  meet  Moses  and 
Elias,  rose  up  before  Him.  The  transparent  air  of 
Palestine  makes  distant  objects  wonderfully  vivid. 
Beyond  Tabor  again  the  hills  of  Perea  and  Bashan 
bej'ond  Jordan  could  be  seen. 

Turning  round  towards  the  south  of  Nazar'^'Iih, 
and  thus  leaving  the  valley  of  the  Jordan  on 
the  east,  and  looking  across  the  "  saucer,"  two 
ranges  would  appear  below  Tabor.  There  is 
Little  Hermon,  the  green  hill  next  to  it,  and 
then  beyond  that  again  there  are  the  brown 
Mountains  of  Gilboa,  This  is  a  low  range  coming 
down  to  the  Plain  of  Jezreel  on  the  right,  the  great 
Plain  which  stretched  due  west  from  the  edges  of 
the  hills  round  Nazareth  for  twenty  miles,  straight 
in  front  of  the  spectator,  right  across  the  range  of 
vision,  and  extended  south  at  least  ten  miles  in 
breadth,  the  greatest  plain  in  Palestine. 

As  Christ,  who  was  Himself  the  last  King  of  the 
Jews  and  the  son  of  David,  looked  at  those  moun- 
tains of  Gilboa,  versed  as  He  was  in  the  Scriptures, 
He  knew  He  was  gazing  at  the  very  place  where  the 
first  King  of  Israel,  Saul,  and  Jonathan  the  beloved 
of  David  "  lovely  and  pleasant  in  their  lives  "  were 
killed.  From  this  very  spot  the  Philistines  carried 
Saul  and  fastened  his  body  against  the  walls  of 
Bethshan,  d  few  miles  away  on  the  left,  and  hung  up 
his  shield  in  the  temple  of  Ashtoreth.  Just  below 
this  spot,  deep  in  the  cleft  between  Little  Hermon 
and  Gnboa,  was  the  cave  where  the  Witch  of  Endor 
31 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

lived,  whom  Saul  consulted  the  night  before  the 
battle  with  the  Philistines.  All  this  was  about  six 
miles  from  where  our  Lord  was  standing. 

Just  at  the  foot  of  Gilboa,  where  the  plain  of  Jezreel 
began,  about  ten  miles  away,  Christ  could  see  some- 
thing of  a  town  still  left  in  His  days  (now  only 
obscure  ruins),  the  great  city  of  Jezreel,  for  long  the 
capital  of  Samaria.  And  as  He  looked  He  would 
remember  how  across  that  plain  one  day  a  cloud  of 
dust  was  seen  advancing  from  the  west,  caused  by 
a  rapidly  driven  chariot  ;  Jehoram,  the  son  of  Ahab, 
and  Ahaziah,  King  of  Judah,  looked  out  from  the 
tower  of  Jezreel  and  wondered  what  it  was,  and 
sent  messenger  after  messenger  to  see,  but  none 
returned.  At  last  as  it  drew  nearer  and  they  saw 
it  was  driven  recldessly  they  said,  *'  It  must  be 
Jehu,  the  son  of  Nimshi,  for  he  driveth  furiously." 
It  would  all  be  very  vivid  to  the  mind  of  One  who 
knew  the  story  so  well.  How  Jehoram  and  Ahab 
went  forth  to  meet  Jehu  in  Naboth's  vineyard,  and 
how  Jehu  drew  a  bow  with  his  fuU  strength,  and 
Jehoram  was  thrown  into  the  stolen  vineyard  with 
an  arrow  through  his  heart ;  and  how  Jezebel  looked 
out  the  window  with  her  painted  face,  but  before 
night  was  killed  and  thrown  to  the  dogs.  Such 
would  be  one  oi  the  Bible  panoramas  that  would 
pass  before  our  Lord  when  He  was  in  Nazareth. 

And  still  looking  south,  and  looking  with  equal 
ease  into  the  future,  Christ  saw  a  Httle  way  out  on 
the  Plain  the  little  town  of  Nain,  where  He  was 
going  to  raise  the  widow's  son.  The  whole  scene  of 
the  great  Jezreel  plain  was  bounded  in  the  distance 
by  the  blue  mountains  of  Samaria. 
32 


NAZARETH,    OR    THE    LIFE    OF    CHRIST 

Turning,  lastly,  towards  the  west,  He  would  see 
at  the  end  of  the  plain  of  Jezreel  a  small  mound 
rising  up,  with  a  village  on  the  top.  That  was 
Harosheth,  one  time  the  stronghold  of  Sisera, 
where  he  kept  900  chariots  of  iron  to  scour  these 
two  plains,  the  plain  of  Esdraelon  that  stretched 
right  away  south-west  to  the  Great  Sea  and  the 
plain  of  Jezreel  on  this  side. 

Critics  have  often  scoffed  at  the  idea  of  chariots 
being  used  for  battle  in  Palestine.  But  when  you 
see  that  they  were  kept  just  at  the  junction  of  the 
two  plains,  you  can  perceive  what  a  wonderfully 
daring  thing  it  was  for  Barak  and  Deborah  to  gather 
Israel  on  the  slopes  of  Little  Tabor  and  Hermon, 
and  take  them  across  the  plain  of  Jezreel  that  lies 
before  us  to  do  battle  with  Sisera  and  his  chariots, 
and  eventually  to  overthrow  them.  Harosheth 
itself  forms  the  end  of  the  great  range  of  Carmel, 
that  also  separates  the  two  plains.  Here  our  Lord 
could  see  where  Elijah  vindicated  Jehovah  before 
400  priests  of  Baal,  and  where  he  came  with  girded 
loins  before  Ahab,  twenty  miles,  to  Jezreel. 

And  then  as  He  looked  away  to  the  horizon  He 
would  see  the  Great  Sea — the  Mediterranean — 
stretching  along  the  whole  western  vista,  with  the 
towns  of  Acra,  Joppa,  Tyre  and  Sidon  dotted  all 
along  the  coast, and  He  would  watch  the  ships  of  Tar- 
shish  and  of  the  isles, and  all  the  Roman  triremes  and 
Greek  galleys  coming  and  going  from  the  various  ports. 

Such,  then,  was  Nazareth,  a  place  in  itself  of  the 
greatest  seclusion  and  obscurity,  and  yet  affording 
opportunity  from  its  hilltops  for  the  most  wonder- 
ful education  in  Bible  lore  and  in  the  whole  history 
33  c 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

and  geography  of  Palestine.  Here  it  was  that  our 
Lord  spent  nine-tenths  of  His  Hfe,  little  noticed, 
and,  so  far  as  we  know,  Uttle  thought  of  or  spoken 
about  by  man  until  the  time  came  when  He  was 
about  thirty  years  of  age. 

Let  none  wonder  that  our  Lord  did  not  go  forth 
to  His  work  before  He  was  thirty.  In  all  things 
He  acted  according  to  the  common  customs  of  the 
country.  The  Levites  could  not  begin  to  minister 
until  they  were  thirty  (from  thirty  to  fifty),  and 
thirty  was  the  recognized  age  when  any  public 
profession,  any  public  mission,  was  always  taken  up. 

Shortly  before  this  time,  John,  the  cousin  of  our 
Lord,  had  begun  to  minister  in  the  wilderness  of 
Judea,  and  it  was  while  he  was  announcing  the 
coming  of  the  Messiah  that  our  Lord  began  His 
mission,  at  the  right  time,  the  appointed  time, 
without  hurry,  without  delay,  at  God's  time. 

Christ  commenced  His  public  Hfe  in  the  first 
place  by  leaving  this  secluded  spot  where  He  had 
lived  so  long,  and  going  down  to  the  wilderness  of 
Judea,  and  after  a  while  coming  to  Bethabara,  where 
John  was  baptizing,  and  there  He  presented  Him- 
self to  His  cousin  for  baptism.  John  had  already 
aUuded  to  a  greater  One  than  himself,  had  already 
pointed  out  his  mission  as  forerunner  to  some 
priests  who  had  been  sent  down  in  disguise  from 
Jerusalem  ;  had  said  that  he  himself  was  not  the 
Messiah  and  had  spoken  of  One  greater  than  he, 
"  whose  shoes'  latchet  he  was  not  worthy  to  un- 
loose." And  in  this  spirit  he  baptized  our  Lord  as 
He  stood  in  the  Jordan,  when  the  Holy  Spirit  like 
a  dove  descended  upon  Him,  and  he  heard  a  voice 
34 


NAZARETH,  OR  THE  LIFE  OF  CHRIST 

from  heaven  saying,  "  This  is  My  beloved  Son,  in 
whom  I  am  well  pleased."  It  was  thus  our  Lord's 
mission  began  and  His  public  career  as  the  Sa\iour 
of  the  world  was  inaugurated. 

I  should  hke  to  pause  here  for  just  one  moment. 
I  have  often  pondered  upon  that  testimony  from 
Heaven  :  "  This  is  My  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am 
well  pleased,"  and  I  have  wondered  why  such  a 
message  was  given  at  such  a  time.  Our  Lord  had 
as  yet  done  no  single  mighty  work  that  could  please 
God  ;  He  had  as  yet  preached  no  single  discourse  so 
far  as  we  know.  If  the  voice  had  spoken  later, 
say  after  a  year  of  public  work,  we  could  understand 
the  expression  of  God's  pleasure  in  the  work  of  His 
Son.  But  so  far  He  had  done  nothing.  It  is  true 
He  had  even  at  that  moment  taken  His  place  in 
deepest  humihty  with  "  the  excellent  of  the  earth  " 
(Ps.  xvi.  2),  but  I  do  not  think  this  reason  alone 
fully  accounts  for  the  Divine  testimony. 

It  seems  to  me  this  voice  was  marking  the  close 
of  the  private  life  of  our  Lord,  and  the  com- 
mencement of  His  pubhc  career  ;  and  that  God 
chose  this  very  moment  to  open  the  heavens  to 
record  His  public  approval  of  His  beloved  Son's 
private  Hfe ;  for  though  He  was  as  yet  utterly 
unknown  to  man.  He  was  well  known  to  God.  To 
me  it  is  most  delightful  that  it  was  at  the  close 
of  the  home-life  of  Nazareth  that  G<)d  said,  "  This 
is  my  beloved  Son,  in  whom  I  am  well  pleased." 
Those  thirty  years  of  obscurity,  which  seem  to  have 
been  spent  for  nothing,  had  all  ascended  one  by 
one  in  the  sweetest  fragrance  to  God  with  the  incense 
of  a  perfect  life,  hved  in  obedience  to  His  Father's 
35 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

will.  And  God  would  not  allow  His  Son  to  com- 
mence His  public  career  without  setting  this  seal  of 
His  Di\dne  approval  on  that  which  no  human  eye 
had  seen,  and  which  no  inspired  pen  has  described — 
the  private  life  of  Christ.  And  I  take  it,  it  is  the 
same  with  us. 

There  are,  I  suppose,  amongst  Christians  a 
hundred  private  lives  for  every  public  one, 
though  so  many  of  us  are  such  public  people  in 
the  present  day.  But  the  private  hfe,  I  believe, 
will  never  pass  unnoticed  by  God  ;  and  we  can  be 
quite  sure  that  He  who  opened  His  heavens  to 
record  His  public  approval  of  the  private  life  of  His 
Son,  spent  in  a  little  country  village,  wiU  not  forget 
to  set  the  seal  of  His  approval  upon  the  most  obscure 
private  life  of  the  least  of  His  children  that  has 
ascended  up  before  Him  with  a  good  savour.  I 
don't  think  we  need  envy  the  public  preacher.  We 
each  of  us  have  our  calling  of  God,  and  if  we  remain 
in  it  according  to  God,  God  wiU  approve  the  one  as 
much  as  the  other. 

We  must  now  pass  on  more  rapidly,  and  until  we 
return  to  Nazareth  again.  After  the  baptism  of 
John,  three,  or  at  any  rate  two,  of  John's  disciples 
wished  to  have  this  greater  One  pointed  out  to  them, 
and  John,  seeing  the  Saviour  walking  along  the 
bank,  said,  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God."  The 
Apostle  John  was  one  of  these  and  James  was 
another,  and  then  they  found  Peter,  and  the  three 
of  them  became  the  disciples  of  our  Lord,  and  two 
of  them  went  at  Christ's  first  invitation  to  see  where 
He  dwelt  ;  probably  it  was  in  one  of  those  little 
huts  of  reeds  which  were  put  up  temporarily  not  far 
3t) 


NAZARETH,  OR  THE  LIFE  OF  CHRIST 

from  the  river,  and  there  they  spent  the  evening 
with  Christ,  who  soon  afterwards  returned  back  to 
the  hill  country  of  Galilee,  and  performed  His  first 
miracle  at  Cana  of  Galilee.  You  remember  when 
Nathaniel  of  Cana  was  brought  to  Christ  at  Caper- 
naum he  said,  with  the  assurance  of  a  neighbour  who 
had  Hved  all  his  hfe  only  four  miles  from  Nazareth  : 
"  Can  any  good  thing  come  out  of  Galilee  ?  "  He 
knew  every  one  in  the  town,  and  therefore  he  was 
sceptical  of  any  good  thing  coming  from  a  place 
with  which  he   was   so   familiar. 

But  it  was  in  this  town  of  Cana  that  our  Lord  per- 
formed His  first  miracle,  of  an  amazing  character,  and 
at  a  very  opportune  time  ;  for  just  then  a  great  wave 
of  rehgious  zeal  against  marriage  had  broken  out, 
headed  by  the  Pharisees,  who  not  only  declaimed 
against  the  practice  of  ha\'ing  more  than  one  wife 
(a  practice  prevalent  amongst  the  Greeks  and  richer 
people),  but  who  went  so  far  as  to  declare  that  the 
marriage  state  itself  was  not  lawful  for  those  who 
would  lead  a  holy  life. 

Our  Lord  here  went  out  of  Llis  way,  as  I  have 
already  said,  to  set  His  seal  upon  the  sacred  tie 
and  upon  the  simple  happiness  and  pleasure  con- 
nected with  it,  in  marked  contrast  to  the  ascetic 
severity  of  His  cousin  John,  from  whom  tliis  miracle 
marked  him  off  for  ever  as  One  with  a  distinct 
mission,  not  for  a  single  locahty  only,  but  for  the 
whole  world.  It  was  some  time  after  this  that  Christ 
came  back  to  Nazareth.  I  pass  over  many  interest- 
ing intervening  scenes  elsewhere  because  I  have 
space  to  speak  only  of  Nazareth  in  this  address. 

After  the  Lord  had  gath/^red  more  disciples,  and 
?,7 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

had  become  known  by  more  wonderful  works,  one 
Sabbath  day  He  appeared  again  in  Nazareth.  I 
should  like  to  ask  your  attention  to  this  Sabbath 
day.  Christ  had  no  doubt  come  back  to  the  house  of 
His  mother,  who  dwelt  about  half  a  mile  from  the 
Synagogue  ;  and  then  on  the  Saturday  morning — the 
Sabbath  morning — as  He  was  wont,  He  would  set 
out  with  His  mother  and  His  disciples  to  the  little 
Synagogue.  That  lay  on  the  left-hand  side  of  the 
village,  just  under  the  hill. 

You  must  picture  this  Synagogue — a  plain  rect- 
angular building  of  rough  blocks  of  stone,  with  a 
flat  roof,  utterly  unlike  the  glorious  structure  at 
Capernaum,  which  I  hope  to  be  able  to  teU  you 
about  in  my  next  address.  The  only  ornamenta- 
tion was  round  the  door,  where  there  would  be 
painted  a  vine  and  flowers  and  a  wreath  of  fruit 
round  it  in  imitation  of  the  vine  at  the  Temple  door. 
Christ  and  His  disciples  and  His  mother  would  walk 
along  past  the  fountain  (where  He  had  so  often 
helped  His  mother  to  draw  the  water)  to  the  door  of 
this  S}Tiagogue.  What,  then,  was  the  interior  of  the 
building  like  ?  What  did  our  Lord  see  on  that 
Sabbath   morning  ? 

The  general  appearance  was  not  unlike  the 
inside  of  a  parish  schoolroom.  There  was  a  long 
bare  room  with  seats  at  the  upper  end,  wooden 
benches  of  superior  construction  covered  with 
rushes  where  the  principal  people  of  the  village 
sat,  and  plain  benches  at  the  lower  end,  while  in  the 
middle  there  was  a  sort  of  raised  pew  or  large  railed 
enclosure  sufiiciently  big  to  hold  ten  or  more  people. 
Then  there  was  a  pulpit,  a  reading  desk,  and  at  the 
38 


NAZARETH,   OR  THE   LIFE   OF  CHRIST 

south  end  a  sort  of  cupboard  or  wooden  structure, 
inside  of  which  was  the  Ark,  which  contained  Rolls 
of  the  Prophets  and  of  the  Law,  which  were  read 
ever}^  Sabbath  day. 

The  congregation  consisted  first  of  aU  of  ten 
men,  who  were  called  "  batlanim "  or  "  idlers." 
They  were  men  of  leisure  chosen  from  the  village 
to  be  always  present  on  the  Sabbath  day  to 
make  the  nucleus  of  a  congregation,  so  that  who- 
ever else  was  not  there,  they  were  always  in  their 
seats.  A  Synagogue  could  not  be  built  in  a  village 
unless  there  were  at  least  ten  men  who  would 
guarantee  to  attend.  So  these  ten  idlers  would  be 
sitting  there.  In  the  railed  structure  in  the  middle 
would  be  gathered  the  elders  of  the  village,  headed 
by  the  chief  elder  or  Rabbi ;  and  then  beside  the 
cupboard  at  the  far  end  stood  the  Chazzan  or  Deacon, 
who  was  the  man  who  had  to  attend  to  the  Rolls  of 
the  Law  and  keep  order  during  the  service.  There 
was  one  other  official,  the  the  Meturgeman,  the  in- 
terpreter of  these  sacred  Hebrew  Scriptures  into  the 
Aramaic  dialect,  which  our  Lord  doubtless  spoke  in 
Nazareth. 

On  this  Sabbath  morning  Christ  would  take 
His  seat  on  the  wooden  benches  with  His  fisher- 
men disciples,  who  were  all  well  known  to  the  congre- 
gation, and  His  mother  would  go  behind  the  screen 
with  the  rest  of  the  women,  for  women  were  not 
allowed  to  be  seen  during  the  service.  Please  notice 
that  in  this  Synagogue  there  never  was  any  altar,  any 
priest,  or  any  sacrifice.  These  were  solely  confined 
to  the  Temple.  There  was  no  one  part  of  the 
S)niagogue  more  sacred  than  another,  except  just 
39 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

where  the  Word  of  God  was  kept,  and  there  was 
great  freedom  of  speech  during  the  service. 

The  morning  psalms  would  be  sung  when  our 
Lord  had  taken  His  seat,  by  a  congregation  probably 
more  than  usually  crowded,  for  by  this  time  Christ 
had  attained  a  great  fame.  Our  Lord  was  already 
knowTi  as  a  miracle  worker,  and  to  some  extent 
as  a  claimant  for  the  Messiahship,  but  not  clearly 
so  ;  it  was  this  morning  that  was  to  decide  that 
question.  Many  may  not  know  that  while  our  Lord 
lived  thirty  years  in  Nazareth  no  fewer  than  twelve 
false  Messiahs  had  risen  up  in  different  parts  of  the 
country,  aU  of  them  proving  to  be  nothing  and 
passing  away,  so  that  the  advent  of  a  new 
Messiah  would  in  itself  occasion  Httle  surprise. 

Picture  then  the  Saviour  as  He  sits  there  on 
the  most  momentous  day  of  His  life.  The  service 
began  quietly,  the  Psalms  of  David  were  sung, 
as  I  have  said,  the  Scripture  read  by  the  chief 
elder  and  its  translation  given  by  the  Meturgeman, 
and  the  elder  had  commented  on  it,  wisely  or 
unwisely,  as  the  case  might  be.  Then  another 
portion  of  Scripture  had  to  be  read,  and  our  Lord 
stood  up  to  read  it.  There  was  handed  to  Him 
the  Roll  of  the  Prophet  Isaiah.  The  Chazzan 
opened  the  Ark,  took  out  the  RoU  and  brought  it 
to  Christ  at  the  lower  end  of  the  Synagogue.  As 
he  walked  along  everybody  tried  to  kiss  it  and  he 
handed  it  to  them  for  the  purpose,  and  at  last  put  it 
into  the  hands  of  our  Lord  :  so  far  aU  was  in  order. 
Then  Jesus,  the  Messiah,  began  to  read  the  words 
recorded    in  Luke    chap.  iv. 

We  must  observe  that  this  Scripture  which 
40 


NAZARETH,  OR  THE  LIFE  OF  CHRIST 

He  read  was  weU-known  to  all  the  Jews  as  the 
great  passage  that  referred  to  the  coming  Messiah ; 
it  was  the  Messianic  message.  Those  in  the 
Synagogue  regarded  it  as  one  of  the  most  sacred 
utterances  in  their  Scriptures.  No  false  Messiah 
had  dared  to  read  it ;  it  had  never  been  appro- 
priated. No  one  had  stood  up  as  Christ  was  now 
standing  on  this  solemn  Sabbath  morning  to  read 
these  words  ;  and  you  can  imagine  the  emphasis 
as  He  read  them  : 

"  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  Me,  because  he  hath 
anointed  Me  " — 
that  was  with  the  sacred  oil — 

"  He  hath  anointed  Me  to  preach  the  Gospel  to  the  poor. 
He  hath  sent  Me  to  heal  the  broken-hearted,  to  preach 
deliverance  to  the  captives  and  recovery  of  sight  to  the 
blind,  to  set  at  liberty  them  that  are  bruised,  to  preach  the 
acceptable  year  of  the  Lord." 

And  then  Christ  closed  or  rolled  up  the  scroll 
and  delivered  it  to  the  Chazzan  who  took  it  back 
to  the  Ark,  and  sat  down.  All  the  elders 
turned  round  in  their  pew,  aU  the  congregation 
had  their  eyes  fastened  on  Him  ;  whispers  went 
about  from  one  to  another,  "  Who  is  that  ?  " 
"  Don't  you  know  ?  "  "  That's  the  carpenter." 
"  Don't  you  remember  when  He  was  last  at  our 
house  ?  "  There  would  be  hardly  one  there  but 
would  know  Him  personally  by  reason  of  some  work 
He  had  done  during  those  thirty  years. 

Imagine  the  awe-struck  and  yet  incredulous 
amazement  with  which  they  heard  this  solemn 
passage  read  by  a  fellow  townsman,  a  carpenter, 
as  if  He  were  applying  it  to  Himself.  Just  try 
and  picture  that  scene.  The  eyes  of  cdl  within 
41 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

the  Synagogue  were  fastened  on  Him,  and  He 
began  to  say  to  them  :  "  This  day  is  this  Scrip- 
ture fulfilled  in  your  ears."  That  settled  the 
point.  However  much  they  might  have  said  He 
could  not  mean  Himself,  that  clinched  the  matter, 
and  showed  that  He  then  and  there  challenged 
them  to  the  belief  that  they  were  in  the  presence 
of  the  Messiah,  the  Saviour  of  the  world.  At 
first  they  were  pleased  with  what  He  said :  the 
full  consequences  of  such  a  claim  did  not  seem  to 
touch  them  at  once ;  they  were  charmed  with  the 
gracious  words  that  proceeded  out  of  His  mouth. 
Then  the  inevitable  questions  began,  "  Isn't  this 
Joseph's  son  ?  "  "  You  remember  Joseph  ;  this 
is  his  son — the  carpenter."  Imagine  His  mother's 
feelings  when  she  heard  these  wonderful  words 
read  ;  she  must  have  pondered  them  with  wonder 
in  her  heart  behind  that  screen. 

Then  our  Lord — I  was  going  to  say  made 
matters  worse — for  He  deliberately  pointed  out 
to  them  that  this  message  was  world-wide,  that 
He  could  not  be  a  Saviour  of  the  Jews  alone, 
He  must  be  a  Saviour  of  the  whole  world,  and 
He  pointed  out  that  when  a  blessing  descended 
it  was  often  a  Gentile  who  was  blessed  and  not 
a  Jew.  He  instanced  Naaman  the  S5n-ian,  and  as 
they  heard  this  a  storm  of  religious  bigotry  rose  and 
swelled  in  their  hearts,  which  grew  to  such  an  ex- 
tent that  they  could  contain  themselves  no  longer. 

Of  course  it  was  the  Chazzan's  duty  to    keep 

order ;    but    this    was  no    common    brawl.      The 

whole   congregation   was  filled   with   concentrated 

rage,    with   a   bewildered,  stmned    feeling,  hardly 

42 


NAZARETH,  OR  THE  LIFE  OF  CHRIST 

believing  that  their  ears  had  served  them  aright, 
and  that  in  this  Synagogue  one  so  well  kno\\Ti  to 
them  should  have  dared  to  stand  up  and  proclaim 
Himself  the  Messiah,  and  then  tell  them  that  the 
Messiah  was  not  for  the  Jews  only,  but  for  those 
accursed  Gentiles  with  whom  they  had  no  dealings. 
All  in  the  Synagogue,  when  they  heard  these  things, 
were  filled  with  rage  ;  they  rose  up,  and  as  one  man 
they  surrounded  Him,  hustled  Him,  drove  Him 
along  in  their  midst  to  a  height  behind  the  Synagogue 
where  the  cliff,  apparently  part  of  a  stone  quarry, 
falls  fifty  feet  sheer,  and  over  the  edge  of  this  cliff 
they  sought  to  hurl  Him.  But  He,  passing  through 
their  midst,  went  His  way. 

Whether  he  asserted  His  divinity,  with  that 
divine  glance  which  threw  His  assailants  to  the 
ground,  in  the  Garden  of  Gethsamene,  or  whether 
He  made  Himself  for  the  moment  invisible  and 
so  passed  through  them,  we  know  not ;  but  they 
were  powerless — for  His  hour  was  not  yet  come. 
Such  was  the  result  of  the  message  of  God  to 
Nazareth,  on  which  He  now  turned  His  back, 
and  which  He  never  entered  again. 

Before  we  leave  the  subject,  let  us  just  look  for 
one  moment  to  whom  the  Scripture  was  addressed. 
The  message  was  to  poor,  broken-hearted,  blind, 
bruised  captives.  There  is  no  message  for  con- 
tented, self-satisfied,  whole,  free,  rich  people — none 
whatever.  And  if  any  have  received  in  their 
hearts  a  message  from  Christ  it  is  because  they 
have  been  either  poor,  or  broken-hearted,  or  blind, 
or  bruised,  or  in  captivity.  For  such  the  Deliverer 
is  strong  ;  to  such  the  message  is  full  of  joy,  for 
43 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

Christ  can  break  every  bond  and  make  happy  every 
saddened  heart. 

Now  I  want  to  turn  for  a  moment  or  two  to  a 
most  amazing  chmax  or  conclusion  of  this  remark- 
able scene.  Before  stating  it  you  will  allow  me  per- 
haps for  one  moment  to  allude  to  those  remarkable 
words  of  our  Lord,  "  Recovery  of  sight  to  the  blind." 
St.  Paul  used  the  same  expression  when  he  declared 
he  was  sent  to  open  the  eyes  of  the  blind  and  turn 
them  from  darkness  to  light.  The  opening  of 
the  eyes  is  everywhere  connected  with  the  recep- 
tion of  the  Gospel  of  Christ.  In  fact,  Christianity 
may  be  described  as  an  operation  for  cataract.  Man 
was  bom  to  see  and  Hve.  The  devil  came  into 
Eden  and  said  "  Your  eyes  shall  be  opened  and 
ye  shall  be  as  gods,"  but  instead  of  seeing  God 
Adam  and  Eve  saw  themselves.  When  a  man 
begins  to  see  himself  instead  of  God,  he  becomes 
blind,  and  when  Adam  staggered  out  of  Eden  he  was 
a  poor,  blind  being. 

The  world  seemed  enveloped  in  darkness  and 
in  blindness  for  4,000  years  ;  and  all  along  its 
history  God  sought  by  one  prophet  or  another, 
or  by  the  law,  to  bring  it  back  to  the  knowledge 
of  Himself,  but  the  veil  still  remained  dropped 
over  the  eyes  of  men  ;  they  could  not  see  God  after 
Satan  had  put  out  their  eyesight  by  sin.  Some 
could  feel  and  grope.  You  remember  that  expres- 
sion in  the  sermon  at  Athens — to  feel  after  Him  and 
find  Him,  though  He  be  not  far  from  every  one  of  us. 
That  describes  the  movements  of  a  blind  man  exactly. 

One  of  the  most  pathetic  sights  that  was  ever 
44 


NAZARETH,  OR  THE  LIFE  OF   CHRIST 

witnessed  on  earth  was  when  j|^e  true  Hgl.t  shone 
and  when  the  Sun  of  Righteousness  rose  with 
heahng  in  His  wings  and  it  was  found  necessary 
to  send  a  messenger  to  the  bhnd  men  to  tell 
them  the  true  Light  was  now  shining.  There  is 
no  need  for  one  to  go  about  the  streets  of  London 
to  tell  us  when  the  day  dawns.  We  have  our 
eyesight.  But  if  this  were  a  city  of  the  bhnd,  it 
would  be  needful  to  send  messengers  into  the 
streets  to  say  when  it  was  day  time.  The  Baptist 
had  to  announce  that  the  true  Light  was  now 
shining,  and  to  bear  witness  of  the  Light  because  it 
was  into  a  blind  world  that  Jesus  came.  And  that 
is  why  one  of  the  most  gracious  of  our  Lord's  mis- 
sions was  to  give  sight  to  the  spiritually  blind,  and 
that  is  what  He  is  doing  to-day.  And  if  there  are 
any  who  have  not  spiritual  sight  they  may  know 
the  great  Restorer  of  sight  is  still  as  powerful  as  ever, 
and  in  a  moment  He  can  so  open  the  eyes  of  the 
soul  that  we  see  what  we  have  never  seen  before, 
and  never  could  believe  was  possible.  So  wonderful 
are  the  things  of  God  when  the  eyes  open  on  them  ! 
Now  for  the  sequel  to  the  striking  scene.  In 
the  Mediterranean  Sea  there  is  a  tall  rocky  island 
called  Patmos.  Half  way  up  the  side  is  a  cave, 
and  tradition  tells  us  in  this  cave  St.  John  saw 
many  visions,  and  wrote  the  Book  of  the  Revelation. 
Onetime  when  he  was  in  this  cave, some  seventy  years 
after  that  Sabbath  day  in  Nazareth,  he  was  in  a 
trance,  seeing  a  wonderful  unfolding  of  the  life  of 
Heaven,  and  he  saw  the  throne  of  God  and  all  the 
glories  of  another  world  befo-e  him,  but  he  felt 
himself  oppressed  with  sorrow  and  the  tears  were 
45 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

running  down  his  cheeks.  He  found  he  was  weeping 
because  there  was  a  great  question  of  opening  a 
book.  There  was  some  book  sealed  with  seven 
seals  in  Heaven,  and  no  one  was  found  there  worthy 
to  open  it.  Search  had  evidently  been  made,  but 
none  were  found  equal  to  the  task.  And  John,  in 
sympathy  with  the  scene,  in  some  mysterious  way 
found  the  tears  rolling  down  his  cheeks  as  he  wept 
in  real  distress  that  no  one  could  open  this  book 
which  was  so  securely  sealed  or  look  upon  it. 

At  last  one  of  the  elders  came  to  him  and  said  : 
"  Weep  not :  behold,  the  Lion  of  the  Tribe  of 
Judah,  the  Root  of  David,  hath  overcome  to  open 
the  Book."  So  John  wiped  his  eyes,  and  raised 
them  to  see  this  lion — a  familiar  emblem  to  him  : — 
he  looked  up  to  see  a  lion,  but  he  beheld  a   lamb. 

It  is  a  most  extraordinary  thing,  my  friends, 
and  those  who  know  something  of  the  workings 
and  mysteries  of  the  human  mind  know  that  what 
we  see  is  as  often  as  not  subjective,  that  is,  the 
result  of  the  condition  of  our  own  mind,  as  ob- 
jective, that  is,  caused  by  what  is  before  our 
eyes.  Some  people  come  to  London  from  Paris, 
and  they  see  a  dingy,  smoky  city.  Others  coming 
to  it  from  the  Black  Country  or  even  Manchester, 
look  on  it  as  a  place  of  brightness  and  of  gaiety. 
We  see  through  the  medium  of  our  own  thoughts 
as  well  as  through  our  eyes. 

The  key  to  the  change  in  the  vision  in  heaven 
from  a  Hon  to  a  lamb  is  due  to  the  Apostle  John's 
first  acquaintance  with  our  Lord.  It  was  when  the 
Baptist  said  :  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God,"  that 
Jesus  filled  the  soul  of  John  as  a  lamb.  He  never 
46 


NAZARETH  — THE    WELL    OF    THE    VIRGIN. 


NAZARETH,  OR  THE  LIFE  OF  CHRIST 

afterwards  could  see  Him  as  anything  else  ;  He 
was  the  Lamb  to  John  aU  through,  because  he  had 
first  learned  to  know  Him  as  the  Lamb  of  God,  and 
he  never  knew  Him  as  the  lion. 

We  shall  carry  with  us  to  heaven  the  acquaint- 
ance we  have  made  with  Christ  here.  No  two  of 
us  receive  the  same  Saviour  ;  no  two  of  us  will 
know  the  same  Christ.  There  is  but  one  Saviour, 
there  is  but  one  Christ,  but  He  is  knowTi  to  each 
of  us  in  a  way  He  is  not  knowTi  to  our  fellows. 
What  great  experiences  there  are  here !  And 
the  more  ups  and  downs  there  are  in  the  rough 
tracks  of  this  world,  and  the  more  one  has  to  lean 
upon  His  helping  and  guiding  hand,  the  more  hnks 
there  will  be,  the  more  intimacy  and  knowledge 
when  we  get  to  heaven. 

We  take  a  large  part  of  our  knowledge  of  Christ 
with  us  to  heaven.  There  is  no  doubt  our  eyes  will 
then  be  opened  by  the  Holy  Spirit  to  understand 
Him  as  one  cannot  do  now.  But  to  each  He  will 
be  an  Individuality  ;  He  will  be  a  Personality  known 
to  us  in  a  different  way  than  to  any  one  else.  So 
when  John  hfted  up  his  eyes,  those  eyes  that  had 
looked  on  Jesus  as  He  walked,  he  could  not  see  a 
lion.  He  looked  expecting  to  see  a  Hon,  but  there 
was  no  lion  to  be  seen  ;    he  saw  the  Lamb. 

And  then  he  saw  Him  take  the  book,  and  when 
He  took  the  book,  the  Roll — in  a  moment  the  idea 
might  flash  into  John's  mind,  when  did  he  last 
see  Him  take  a  roU  in  His  hands  ?  Oh,  how  memory 
flies  back  through  time  in  an  instant  !  Do  you 
remember  that  scene  in  Nazareth  ?  Did  St.  John 
remember  when  that  Chazzan  handed  his  Master 
.47 


VaTH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

the  scroll  of  Isaiah  ?  It  all  may  have  come  before 
him  in  a  moment.  And  he  may  have  seen  the 
carpenter's  Son  taking  the  roll  again. 

Do  you  know,  my  friends,  those  of  you  who  have 
turned  to  the  passage  in  Isaiah,  that  when  our 
Lord  shut  up  that  scroll,  in  the  particular  place 
where  He  closed  it.  He  did  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able things  He  ever  did. 

"The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  Me."* 

Ke  read  : 

•'  to  proclaim  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord," 

and  then  comes  a  comma,  and  the  verse  goes  on  T 
"  and  the  day  of  vengeance  of  our  God." 

But  at  that  comma  in  the  middle  of  the  verse, 
in  the  middle  of  the  sentence,  Christ  closed  the  book 
to  the  astonishment  of  all  in  that  S5magogue — 
for  they  knew  the  passage  well.  He  refused  to 
finish  the  sentence.  He  handed  the  roll  back  to 
the  Chazzan,  who  took  it  back  to  the  Ark,  and 
the  sentence  was  never  finished.  "  To  preach  the 
acceptable  year  of  the  Lord,"  (comma) — nothing 
more.  "  I  am  He  that  shutteth  and  no  m.an 
openeth."  That  was  what  He  said  in  Nazareth  ; 
but  in  heaven  He  says  :  "  I  am  He  that  openeth 
and  no  man  shutteth." 

And  this  is  the  miracle — that  the  Lamb  in  the 
midst  of  the  throne  in  heaven  is  the  carpenter  of 
Nazareth;  and  the  carpenter  of  Nazareth  who  shut  the 
book  in  the  middle  of  the  verse  at  "  the  acceptable 
year  of  the  Lord  "  opened  it  again  before  the  Throne 
of  God  and  read  on  where  He  left  off,  and  completed 
*  Isa,  Ixi.  1,  2. 
48 


NAZARETH,  OR  THE  LIFE  OF  CHRIST 

the  verse,  "  And  the  day  of  vengeance  of  our  God." 
That  is  the  subject  of  the  Book  of  Revelation.  The 
seals  are  aU  broken  one  by  one,  and  what  is  read  ? 
"  The  day  of  vengeance  of  our  God,"  Now  mark  ! 
"  I  am  He  that  shutteth  and  no  man  openeth,"  and 
in  Nazareth  He  said  I  will  fulfil  the  Word  of  God 
as  far  as  the  middle  of  the  verse,  but  the  rest  shall 
never  be  fulfilled  tiU  I  reopen  the  book  in  heaven 
And  the  unread  remainder  of  that  verse  has  never 
been    fulfilled    yet. 

For  eighteen  hundred  years  the  roll  of  Isaiah 
has  been  shut  in  the  middle  of  that  verse  and  sealed 
by  God  with  many  seals.  One  comma  alone 
divides  mercy  from  judgment,  the  Saviour  of  the 
world  from  the  Judge  of  all  men — one  single 
comma  !  We  are  here  in  virtue  of  the  long-drawn 
out  tenacity  of  that  one  comma. 

What  is  a  comma  ?  The  shortest  breathing 
space  known  to  men  in  reading  a  passage.  But 
it  is  a  majestic  pause  in  the  ways  of  God — that  all 
men  might  be  saved,  that  all  men  might  come  to  a 
knowledge  of  the  truth.  The  sole  reason  that 
churches  and  chapels  will  be  open  next  Sunday  is 
because  the  force  and  value  of  that  comma  and  the 
grace  of  God  are  not  yet  exhausted.  But  it  will 
be  exhausted  when  the  Lamb  takes  the  book  from 
the  right  hand  of  Him  who  sits  upon  the  throne 
and  begins  to  open  it.  The  day  of  mercy  will  then 
be  over,  the  door  will  be  shut — for  the  day  of 
vengeance  of  our  God  is  at  hand. 

It  is  strange  indeed  to  have  the  veil  drawn  aside 
for  a  moment  from  these  deep  spiritual  mysteries  in 
the  midst  of  the  bustle  of  London  life.     We  seem  to 
49  D 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

be  in  a  world  apart.  The  veil  is  lifted  for  a  moment 
and  we  catch  a  glimpse  of  God  and  then  it  falls 
down  again,  and  we  pass  back  into  our  ordinary 
life,  but  we  cannot  return  without  bearing  some 
impression  of  the  enormous  issues  which  are  work- 
ing quietly  behind  the  current  course  of  this  world. 
We  see  its  affairs  moving  onwards  ;  the  varied 
topics  of  the  day  are  on  our  lips  and  occupy  our 
minds,  but  behind  all  these  the  lives  of  men  are 
depending  upon  the  value  of  a  single  comma  in 
the  sixty-first  chapter  of  Isaiah — ^long  drawn  out 
in  the  providence  of  God. 


5© 


THIRD  ADDRESS 

Capernaum,  or  the  Work  of  Christ 

TO-DAY  we  are  occupied  with  the  pubHc  Hfe  of 
our  Lord  by  the  Sea  of  GaUlee.  We  have 
done  with  the  peaceful  seclusion  of  Nazareth,  with 
its  panoramic  hilltops,  and  descending  some  2,000 
feet  and  travelling  some  twenty-five  miles  we  reach 
the  scenes  of  our  Lord's  chief  labours.  Let  us  now 
focus  our  mental  eyes  and  try  and  see  the  picture 
before  us. 

Here  is  a  lake  of  the  shape  of  an  Irish  harp, 
with  a  sharp  bend  on  one  side ;  like  the  Lake  of 
Geneva,  but  a  little  less  than  a  quarter  of  its  size.  It 
is  still  more  like  Zug,  but  I  mention  Geneva  because 
so  many  of  us  know  it. 

Picture  the  Sea  of  Galilee  then,  a  quarter  of 
the  size  of  Geneva,  and  before  you,  as  you  look 
toward  the  top  of  the  lake,  where  Montreux  Hes 
on  the  north  shore  of  Geneva,  you  see  the  large 
town  of  Capernaum ;  while  the  city  of  Geneva 
might  fairly  represent  the  situation  of  Tiberias, 
though  Tiberias  was  not  quite  at  the  end  of 
the  lake,  but  a  little  to  the  left-hand  side.  Be- 
tween the  two,  the  Sea  of  Galilee  widens  on  the 
left  v^ath  a  deeper  bay  than  in  the  Lake  of  Geneva, 
while  the  right  shore  is  straighter  ;  and  in  the  angle 
of  this  bend  where  Ouchy  is,  there  is  on  Galilee,  the 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

little  village  of  Magdala.  From  Ouchy  up  to  Mon- 
treux,  as  it  were,  is  a  plain  some  three  miles  long, 
and  about  one  mile  wide.  This  is  the  Plain  of 
Gennesaret,  up  and  down  which  Jesus  walked  so 
much. 

The  left-hand  side  of  the  sea,  or  the  Savoy  side 
of  the  Lake  of  Geneva,  is  almost  straight,  and, 
like  Geneva,  has  a  hne  of  high  rugged  hills 
about  half  a  mile  from  the  shore.  This  was  the 
side  where  the  swine  ran  violently  down  into  the 
sea,  at  the  one  spot  (Gergesa),  where  the  chff  falls 
sheer  into  the  water  :  it  is  the  country  of  the  Gada- 
renes  ;  and  Gadara  was  outside  the  land  of  Palestine, 
and  forms  a  part  of  Perea — ^high  and  rocky  and 
frowning,  whereas  on  the  left  side  you  get  a  low  and 
smiling  landscape,  just  as  you  do  in  Geneva. 

Try  and  picture  aU  this  ;  and  in  addition  at 
the  head  of  the  lake,  as  in  every  northern  view 
in  Palestine,  the  great  snowy  head  of  Hermon  far 
away,  which  takes  the  place  of  the  Dent  du  Midi  at 
the  head  of  Geneva.  So  that  you  can  see  the  whole 
picture  pretty  well  by  comparison.  Finally,  we  must 
remember  that  this  inland  water  is  500  feet  below 
the  level  of  the  sea,  so  that  it  cannot  be  seen  in  its 
deep  basin  from  Nazareth  in  the  hills  some  twenty 
or  twenty-five  miles  away  to  the  south  east. 

We  wiU  now  turn  to  Capernaum,  the  Montreux 
of  the  Sea  of  Galilee.  Have  you  ever  thought  what 
the  name  means  ?  Capher-naum,  or  the  Tomb  of 
Nahum.  Nahum  (a  rabbi,  not  the  prophet)  is 
buried  at  Capernaum,  and  his  tomb  is  there.  I 
have  been  to  see  it,  only  I  dared  not  go  very  far  in 
because  it  was  fuU  of  jackals  at  the  other  end,  and 
52 


i 

■'4p* 

'^a^'-m 

r-.;^N9HyMBy|^B 

?P^^8tete^* 

«^- 


^^! 


THE    RUINS    Ul     LAI'hKSALM    AND    THE    LAKE    OF    GENNESARETH. 


CAPERNAUM,   OR  THE   WORK   OF   CHRIST 

you  could  see  their  eyes  shining  in  the  darkness. 
But  there  stands  the  great  Tomb  of  Nahum  to  this 
day,  behind  where  the  city  was,  which  evidently 
gives  its  name  to  the  place.  Its  name  now  is  Tel- 
Hum  or  Tel-nahum,  which  means  the  Mound  of 
Nahum,  because  nothing  remains  of  it  but  a  heap  of 
ruins  now.  Tel-Hum  is  very  much  the  same  thing 
as  Caper-naum  ;  so  that  its  present  name  and  the 
name  which  it  bore  in  the  days  of  Christ  are  practi- 
cally aUke. 

Imagine,  then,  on  the  left-hand  shore  of  the  lake, 
a  few  miles  below  where  the  River  Rhone  comes 
into  the  Lake  of  Geneva  or  the  River  Jordan 
into  the  Lake  of  Galilee,  a  large  black  town.  All 
the  other  towns  in  Palestine  are  white  and  the 
villages  brown  ;  but  this  is  a  black  town  and  its  un- 
usual colour  is  due  to  its  being  built  of  basalt.  There 
are  black  igneous  rocks  near,  from  which  stones  for 
Capernaum  were  quarried,  so  you  must  imagine  a 
town  much  darker  than  Aberdeen,  for  instance,  built 
of  black  rock,  covering  the  whole  of  the  lakeside  for 
some  considerable  distance.  Above  the  town  you 
see  a  creek  nmning  in  from  the  lake,  sufficiently 
narrow  for  a  person  speaking  from  a  boat  in  the 
middle  to  be  easily  heard  by  people  on  both  sides. 
That  is  probably  the  spot  where  Jesus  sat  in  a  ship 
and  spoke  to  the  crowds  on  the  shores.  This  could 
be  done  nowhere  else  so  well  on  the  Sea  of 
Galilee. 

To  return  to  Capernaum.  Imagine  a  noble  struc- 
ture such  as  was  to  be  seen  in  no  other  town  of 
Palestine,  a  magnificent  Greek  synagogue  built  by 
a  Roman  centurion  at  a  very  great  cost,  some 
53 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

ninety  feet  long,  with  a  portico,  colonnades,  handsome 
cornices,  and  an  elaborate  frieze,  parts  of  which  are 
lying  with  other  ruins  half  buried  in  thorns  and 
nettles  at  the  present  time.  It  had  also  Corinthian 
pillars,  not  at  all  unlike  one  of  the  smaller  Ephesian 
temples  of  that  day. 

This  synagogue,  built  by  Greek  architects  for  the 
Jews,  was  as  different  from  the  humble  building 
at  Nazareth,  where  Christ  read  that  prophecy  of 
Isaiah,  as  could  be  well  imagined.  It  was  not  of 
grey  stone,  but  white  marble,  standing  conspic- 
uously on  a  small  elevation,  a  white  temple  in  a 
black  city  ;  and  it  would  form  one  of  the  most 
conspicuous  objects  on  the  bank  of  the  lake.  It 
could  be  seen  from  every  part  for  miles  away  ;  and 
was  a  splendid  and  beautiful  building,  a  lasting 
monument  of  the  religious  munificence  of  a  Roman 
centurion.  From  the  remains  lying  about  still  on  the 
site,  the  general  outline  of  the  building  can  be  made 
out.  Such,  then,  was  the  synagogue  immortalized 
by  our  Lord's   ministry. 

Behind  Capernaum  were  a  number  of  cornfields, 
through  which  the  disciples  walked  on  the  Sabbath 
day.  And  then  the  ground  rises  slowly  until  two 
miles  behind  Capernaum  you  come  to  a  level  plateau. 
On  this  plain  still  stands  an  old  khan  or  inn,  the 
khan  Jub  Jusef,  which  was  there  at  the  time  of 
Christ  and  long  before. 

In  front  of  that  busy  khan  runs  the  great 
Roman  road  from  Jerusalem  to  Damascus,  and 
a  few  miles  farther  on,  Sai^l  was  struck  down  by 
the  blinding  light  of  Heaven  when  he  was  riding 
to  Damascus.  Behind  this  plain  rises  up  what 
54 


CAPERNAUM,   OR  THE  WORK   OF   CHRIST 

is  known  in  Galilee  as  "  The  Mountain."  You  have 
heard  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  but  perhaps  it  has 
never  occurred  to  us  why  the  expression  "  the 
Mount  "  is  used  ;  the  reason  is  because  that  moun- 
tain is  never  called  a  mountain,  it  is  always  called 
the  mountain,  and  has  no  other  name. 

It  appears  that  our  Lord,  leaving  Capernaum 
one  day,  walked  up  through  those  fields,  and  on  the 
plain  there  was  a  great  crowd.  There  were  five 
or  sLx  main  roads  that  join  together  in  front  of 
the  khan.  It  was  a  centre  from  all  parts  of  the 
country,  and  as  busy  a  place  in  those  days  as  Clap- 
ham  Junction  is  in  our  own.  Numbers  of  people 
of  all  races  coming  and  going  met  in  a  great  crowd 
on  this  plain  at  the  foot  of   tlie   mountain. 

Jesus  apparently  left  His  disciples  there,  and 
went  up  into  the  mountain  to  pray  alone  all  night 
to  God.  He  then  seems  to  have  come  down  in 
the  morning  from  the  mountain  and  to  have 
oiet  His  disciples,  who  perhaps  were  seeking  Him, 
and  from  them  He  chose  twelve  apostles.  Then 
He  appears  to  have  gone  to  a  smaU  natural 
platform,  a  plateau  just  about  twenty  feet  above  the 
plain,  with  the  mountain  rising  up  behind. 

Jesus  sat  here  with  His  disciples  round  Him  and 
spake  unto  them  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  which  St. 
Luke  calls  the  Sermon  on  the  Plain ;  because, although 
His  disciples  were  on  the  mountain,  there  were  hun- 
dreds, and  perhaps  thousands  of  people  on  the  plain 
below.  WTiether,  therefore,  it  is  called  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount  or  the  Sermon  on  the  Plain  is  imma- 
terial :  as  one  perceives  the  moment  one  stands 
where  Christ  stood  \n  hen  He  preached  those  memor- 
55 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

able  fifth,  sixth  and  seventh  chapters  of  Matthew.* 
Now  I  want  to  take  you  in  spirit  on  one  particular 
Sabbath  morning  to  Capernaum.  It  is  nearly  time 
for  the  synagogue  service.  Scores  of  people  are 
flocking  up  from  the  shore  and  lower  parts  of  the 
town,  and  an  unusual  number  come  crowding  into 
the  synagogue.  There  is  no  need  for  the  ten  men 
of  leisure  (batlanim)  to  make  up  the  congregation 
to-day,  because  multitudes  are  streaming  into  this 
immense  synagogue,  and  there  is  a  buzzing  and  a 
noise  going  on  in  the  crowd  around  the  steps,  show- 
ing that  something  remarkable  has  happened.  If 
you  mingle  with  them  you  hear  them  talk  of  an 
extraordinary  event  which  occurred  the  day  before. 
It  appears  from  the  excited  gossip  of  the  crowd 
that  the  Prophet  Jesus,  the  day  before,  had  taken 
ship  to  the  other  side  of  the  lake,  six  miles  away, 
across  to  the  country  of  Gaulonitis,  and  there  He  had 
gone  up  to  some  green  slope  behind  Bethsaida  Julius, 
and  spoken  to  the  vast  numbers  who  had  come  from 
every  part — from  Tiberias,  and  every  other  quarter 
of  the  lake,  to  hear  His  gracious  words.  At  the  close, 
finding  that  they  were  hungry,  He  had  actually  fed 
them,  as  Jehovah  fed  Israel  of  old,  with  bread  from 
heaven.  He  had  but  five  loaves  and  two  or  three 
of  the  thick  short  fish,  Hke  perch,  which  abound 
in.  the  lake,  and  two  of  which  I  have  eaten  myself 
at  breakfast.  Such  a  small  provision  would  not  go 
very  far  amongst  five  thousand  people,  for  it  was 
hardly  a  sufficient   meal  for  three  or  four.     This 

^  The  old  site  of  the  Horns  of  Hattin   is  now  untenable 
in  consequence  of  the  discovery  of  the  site  of  Capernaum. 
The  former  supposed  site  was  on  the  plain  of  Gennesaret. 
56 


CAPERNAUM,   OR  THE   WORK   OF   CHRIST 

miracle  had  evidently  really  taken  place,  for  the 
story  was  repeated  again  and  again. 

The  people  were  full  of  gossip,  which  was  buzzing 
and  humming  all  around,  because  this  Prophet  was 
not  only  going  to  preach  to  them  that  morning, 
and  perhaps  heal  a  sick  man,  but  they  expected 
that  He  was  going  to  feed  them ;  and  the  unem- 
ployed and  outcast  and  all  the  loafers  in  Capernaum 
would  be  in  front  of  the  synagogue  that  morning 
to  share  in  the  meal.  They  felt  sure  the  Saviour 
Himself  would  come  to  the  synagogue,  because 
such  was  His  custom. 

But  there  was  another  rumour  passing  about, 
A  mysterious  whisper  was  heard  that  something 
still  more  supernatural  had  happened.  Some  of 
His  disciples  who  had  come  in  late  last  night  had 
told  others  of  a  most  wonderful  occurrence.  Jesus 
had  not  come  back  with  them  in  the  boat,  which  had 
to  start  without  Him  because  of  the  Sabbath — for  no 
one  was  allowed  to  set  foot  in  a  boat  after  six  o'clock 
on  Friday  night,  when  the  day  of  rest  began,  or  to  do 
any  travelling.  The  people  who  had  been  fed  had 
to  sail  away  early  to  get  back  to  Tiberias  and  other 
distant  places,  and  the  late  departures,  when  they 
came  to  the  shore,  found  the  disciples  already  gone, 
so  they  took  boat  after  Jesus.  But  Jesus  had  not 
been  found  with  His  disciples ;  the  wind  had 
been  contrary,  and  Peter  and  his  companions  had 
rowed  in  vain  against  the  westerly  gale. 

And  then  it  was  said  that  the  form  of  this  Prophet 

of  Nazareth,  Jesus,  was  seen  walking  on  the  water. 

He  was   then  received  by  His  awestruck  disciples 

into  the  httle  ship,  and  the  moment  He  entered  it 

57 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

the  wind  seemed  to  cease,  and  immediately  they 
arrived  without  further  effort  at  the  little  creek  by 
the  side  of  Capernaum. 

Try  now  and  imagine  with  what  curiosity,  with 
what  interest  the  gossiping  crowd  before  the  syna- 
gogue would  at  length  see  Jesus  with  His  httle  band 
of  disciples  coming  up  the  hiU.  A  way  would  at  once 
be  made  for  Him  as  He  entered,  and  He  would  take 
His  seat  in  the  building  amongst  the  poorer  people. 
The  men  of  leisure  would  be  there,  the  elders  also  in 
their  rostrum  in  the  middle  ;  and  when  the  service 
began,  a  few  psalms  would  be  chanted,  the  four  short 
psalms  recited,  and  then  the  chazzan,  or  the  roll- 
keeper,  the  custodian  of  all  the  sacred  writings,  would 
go  to  the  ark  and  pull  out  the  roll  for  the  day,  whicii 
he  passed  along  to  be  kissed  by  all  the  faithful  as  he 
took  it  up  to  the  elder,  the  chief  rabbi. 

Then  when  it  was  in  the  rabbi's  hands,  all  the 
congregation  would  rise  ;  Christ  and  His  disciples 
would  rise,  and  they  would  all  say  these  words  : 

"  This  is  the  law  which  Moses  set  before  the  children  of 
Israel,  the  law  which  Moses  commanded  us,  the  inheritance 
of  the  congregation  of  Jacob.  The  way  of  God  is  perfect  ; 
the  way  of  the  Lord  is  tried  ;  He  is  a  buckler  to  all  who 
trust  in  Him." 

Then  the  passage  would  be  read,  the  roll  would 
be  taken  back,  the  people  would  again  rise  and 
say  : 

"  Let  them  praise  the  Name  of  the  Lord,  for  His  Name 
alone  is  exalted.  His  glory  is  above  the  earth  and  the 
heavens." 

There  would  be  more    psalms.       The    chief    elder 

followed  with  a  short  sermon  on  tiie  text,  and  then 

58 


CAPERNAUM,    OR   THE   WORK   OF    CHRIST 

the   hour   would  arrive  for  which  all  the  people 
had  been  patiently  waiting,  the  time  for  questions. 

All  would  turn  to  Jesus  to  see  what  was  going  to 
happen.  \Vliat  explanation  would  He  offer  ?  Was 
He  now  going  to  feed  them  all  and  engage  to  supply 
Capernaum  with  bread  for  the  future,  or  what  was 
He  going  to  do  ?  And  they  all  hstened  intently  as 
Jesus  spoke  of  the  manna,  and  while  He  spoke  of  the 
manna  He  may  very  well  have  pointed  to  what  you 
can  see  lying  on  the  grass  to-day  at  Capernaum.  On 
one  of  the  stones  near  the  landing  stage  there  is 
sculptured  a  pot  of  manna,  and  the  ark  of  the  cove- 
nant in  a  part  of  the  frieze  which  ran  round  the  wall 
of  the  synagogue.  When  our  Lord  spoke  He  might 
well  have  pointed  to  that,  so  remarkably  preserved 
to  us.  He  spoke  to  them  of  manna,  and  He  said,^ 
speaking  as  if  He  were  the  bread,  "  For  Him  hath 
God  the  Father  sealed."  This  is  thought  to  refer 
to  a  custom  of  sealing  loaves  of  bread  that  were  fit 
to  eat.  He  is  supposed  to  allude  to  the  Jewish 
practise  of  setting  a  mark  on  good  bread,  intimating 
that  He  was  Himself  the  one  who  was  sealed  by  the 
Father  as  pure  bread  fit  to  eat,  good  for  food.  But 
all  this  was  beyond  His  audience. 

When  the  wonderful  discourse  (preserved  for  us 
by  the  Apostle  John)  was  ended  they  were  angry, 
discontented  and  puzzled  and  perplexed.  They 
wanted  facts  :  He  gave  them  truth.  They  wanted 
bread  :  He  offered  them  His  flesh  and  blood.  They 
asked  for  earth  :  He  opened  to  them  heaven.  No 
wonder  they  were  discontented  ;  they  could  not  un- 
derstand the  marvellous  points  of  that  sermon. 
*  St.  John  vi. 
59 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

Now,  having  pictured  this  scene,  I  want  to  take 
you  to  one  other  scene  at  Capernaum,  and  I  will 
read  part  of  another  discourse  of  our  Lord  in 
Matthew  xi.  If  you  will  compare  this  chapter  with 
Luke  vii.  36  I  think  you  will  agree  with  me  that  the 
discourse  was  probably  spoken  in  a  Pharisee's  house, 
and  not,  at  any  rate,  in  the  synagogue.  The  words 
which  I  will  read  are  the  closing  words  of  the  chapter, 
and  familiar  to  us  all. 

"  Come  unto  Me,  all  ye  that  labour  and  are  heavy  laden, 
and  I  \vill  give  you  rest.  Take  My  yoke  upon  you,  and 
learn  of  Me  ;  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart :  and  ye 
shall  find  rest  unto  your  souls.  For  My  yoke  is  easy,  and 
My  burden  is  light." 

I  shaU  aUude  to  the  earlier  part  of  the  chapter  in 
a  moment  or  two.  "  Come  unto  Me,  all  ye  that 
labour  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  rest  you," 
I  will  rest  you.  It  is  not  so  much  giving  them 
rest,  but  being  a  rest  to  them  :  it  is  a  personal 
matter.  I  might  give  any  one  rest  by  putting 
them  on  a  bed  ;  but  in  this  case  the  bed  is  Christ. 
I  will  rest  you.  Christ  Himself  is  the  One  in  whom 
I  rest.  This  is  the  first  statement,  and  it  is  uncon- 
ditional and  stands  by  itself. 
The  second  offer  is  conditional : 

"  Take  My  yoke  upon  you,  and  learn  of  Me  ;  for  I  am 
meek  and  lowly  in  heart,  and  you  shall  find  rest  unto  your 
souls.     For  My  yoke  is  easy,  and  My  burden  is  fight." 

In  the  whole  passage  there  are  two  distinct  requests. 
The  first  is  "  Come,"  the  second  is  "  Take  "  :  there 
is  a  rest  given  and  a  rest  found ;  but  the  rest  given 
is  the  result  of  coming  to  Christ ;  the  rest  found  is 
the  result  of  taking  His  yoke, 
60 


CAPERNAUM,   OR  THE  WORK   OF  CHRIST 

Let  us  look  at  the  first  rest  for  a  moment,  which 
is  primarily  a  rest  of  conscience  ;  the  result  of  a 
position,  being  in  Christ  and  is  continuous.  The 
second  is  primarily  a  rest  of  the  heart,  and  is  the 
result  of  the  habit  or  practice  of  wearing  Christ's 
yoke. 

But  though  there  are  two  rests  they  are  both 
for  the  same  class,  the  "  weary  and  heavy  laden  "  ; 
and  what  strikes  us  at  once  is  what  we  noticed 
with  regard  to  Nazareth,  that  all  the  mission  of 
the  Messiah  in  deUverance  and  heaUng  was  to  the 
broken-hearted,  the  prisoners,  the  blind,  the  bruised 
and  the  poor  ;  and  that  if  we  are  not  either  bhnd, 
bruised,  poor,  broken-hearted  or  in  prison,  the 
message  is  not  for  us.  In  the  same  way  we  notice 
to-day  that,  "  Come  unto  Me,"  is  not  addressed 
to  everybody ;  it  is  not  a  universal  invitation. 
There  are  universal  invitations,  but  this  is  not  one  ; 
this  is  a  particular  invitation,  and  falls  most 
graciously  upon  the  ears  of  those  for  whom  it  is 
intended.  "  Come  unto  Me,  aU  ye  that  are  weary 
and  heavy  laden,  and  I  will  rest  you." 

Now,  are  there  any  of  us  who  are  weary  and 
heavy  laden  ?  Are  we  tired  of  the  round  of  life, 
are  we  heavy  laden  with  many  burdens  ?  "  Come 
unto  Me,  and  I  wiU  rest  you."  It  is  just  as  if  some 
one  came  to  the  poor  unemployed  late  at  night 
who  were  hanging  about  in  Trafalgar  Square,  weary, 
cold,  listless  and  hopeless,  and  many  of  them 
crippled  with  disease,  and  said,  "  Come  to  me,  I 
will  rest  and  heal  you,"  and  took  them  to  a  house 
near  and  put  them  in  warm  beds  and  attended  to 
their  ailments. 

6i 


CAPERNAUM,   OR  THE  WORK  OF  CHRIST 

be  two  oxen  an-J  the  yoke  may  prevent  one 
going  faster  than  the  other :  they  are  under  the 
yoke.  But  the  chief  great  primary  use  of  a  "  yoke  " 
is  seldom  grasped  by  Christian  people  ;  most  are  so 
occupied  with  the  secondary  uses  I  have  named 
that  its  great  purpose  is  entirely  missed. 

A  yoke  first  of  all  is  a  contrivance  to  enable 
oxen  to  pull  a  load  along  the  road  or  across  the 
field  ;  "  yoke  "  is  simply  another  word  for  "  har- 
ness." Harness  is  not  put  upon  an  animal  prim- 
arily for  subjection  or  restraint  or  fellowship  ;  it  is 
put  upon  it  to  enable  it  to  draw  a  load.  That  is 
the  meaning  of  harness  ;  that  is  what  the  collar 
or  yoke  is  especially  for  ;  and  yet  you  may  search 
many  commentaries  without  finding  such  a  meaning 
attached  to  the  word  "  yoke."  Let  us  then  be  clear 
that  the  true  meaning  of  "yoke"  is  something  to 
pull  a  load  with,  and  in  the  present  day  answers 
to  the  collar  on  the  horse's  neck. 

Speaking  now  for  a  moment  as  a  physician,  who 
sees  a  great  many  nervous  and  broken-down  people 
of  all  sorts,  I  find  that  the  greater  number  are  not 
only  sick  in  their  bodies,  but  also  sick  in  their  minds, 
and  what  they  mostly  suffer  from  is  a  complaint 
which  I  will  call— sore  neck.  There  is  nothing  these 
sufferers  feel  so  often — speaking  in  parables — as  a 
raw  place,  a  sore  on  the  neck.    Let  me  illustrate  this. 

In  London  we  have  omnibus  and  carriage  horses, 
and  we  notice  at  once  the  difference  between  the  two. 
An  omnibus  horse  has  discarded  every  bit  of  har- 
ness, except  the  headpiece,  and  the  one  essential 
part,  with  which  the  load  has  to  be  drawn,  which  is 
the  yoke,  or  collar . 

63 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

Do  we  know  in  our  hearts  and  souls  that 
we  are  so  resting  on  Christ  our  Saviour  that  our 
spiritual  position  may  be  well  expressed  by  the 
line  "  Safe  in  the  arms  of  Jesus  "  ?  Have  we 
any  true  sense  of  the  everlasting  arms  under  us 
as  we  sit  here,  not  rested  in  our  bodies  only,  but 
rested  in  our  souls,  absolutely  rested,  rested  in  our 
consciences,  with  nothing  ahead  in  the  future  to 
cause  us  uneasiness,  because  all  our  sins  have  been 
borne  and  all  questions  settled  by  the  merits  and 
work  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ  ?  If  we 
have,  we  have  accepted  the  first  of  Christ's  two  offers 
here,  and  are  enjoying  what  it  brings  to  us — a  perfect 
rest  of  conscience. 

But  we  may  have  this  rest  of  conscience  and  yet 
be  very  restless  in  the  daily  practical  life  ;  and  that 
is  why  there  is  a  second  offer.  I  dwell  on  this, 
because  I  am  here  rather  to  speak  to  those  who  well 
know  what  it  is  to  look  to  Christ  as  a  true  and  perfect 
Saviour,  but  who  have  not  perhaps  got  at  the  inner 
meaning  of  the  last  two  verses  with  which  the 
eleventh  chapter  of  Matthew  closes — I  will  just 
read  them  again  :  "  Take  My  yoke  upon  you,  and 
learn  of  Me  ;  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart  :  and 
ye  shall  find  rest  unto  your  souls.  For  My  yoke  is 
easy  and  my  burden  is  light." 

These  are  indeed  wonderful  words,  and  it  is 
only  as  we  consider  them  that  we  see  how  won- 
derful they  are.  I  was  only  looking  on  Sunday 
at  a  very  good  commentary  as  to  what  "  yoke  " 
is  supposed  to  mean  here,  and  I  found  it  means 
"  fellowship,  restraint,  and  subjection."  No  doubt 
these  are  three  minor  uses  of  a  yoke.  There  may 
62 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

Now,  every  device  has  been  adopted  to  prevent 
these  collars  causing  sore  necks.  We  have  Inspec- 
tors of  the  Royal  Society  for  the  Prevention  of 
Cruelty  to  Animals,who  go  about  our  streets,  and 
when  they  see  a  horse  jibbing  and  restive  and 
backing  and  difficult  to  start  they  hold  up  the  hand 
and  stop  the  omnibus,  and  they  hft  the  collar, 
and  there,  just  where  the  strain  of  the  load  is  felt 
is  the  secret  of  the  whole  thing — a  sore  neck. 

What,  then,  has  made  the  neck  sore  ?  It 
is  that  the  collar  either  does  not  fit  or  it  has  not  been 
properly  padded.  Ingenuity  has  been  exhausted 
by  harness-makers  to  provide  a  perfectly  fitting 
pad  for  the  lining  of  a  horse's  coUar.  It  has  been 
covered  with  all  sorts  of  materials,  and  stuffed  with 
every  conceivable  thing,  from  hay  upwards  ;  and  it 
has  been  inflated  like  an  india-rubber  tyre,  so  as  to 
be  pneumatic.  But  this  is  found  to  heat  the  neck, 
and  I  do  not  think  authorities  are  even  yet  agreed 
as  to  what  is  the  best  device  for  lining  a  horse's 
collar  so  that  it  can  pull  a  heavy  load  day  after  day 
and  never  jib  or  kick  and  never  have  a  sore  neck  : 
in  other  words,  for  its  collar  to  be  easy,  and  its 
burden  (therefore)  light. 

And  this  is  what  Christians  want.  They  have  often 
sore  necks  ;  they  become  sick  in  body  and  mind. 
Why  ?  They  have  been  trying  to  pull  the  load  of 
life  with  a  bad  collar  that  does  not  fit.  They  have 
no  rest  for  their  souls  ;  no  wonder  it  makes  them 
miserable.  That  is  why  Christ  here  comes  to  us  and 
says,  It  is  not  enough  for  you  to  come  to  Me  as  weary 
and  heavy  laden  and  find  a  rest  for  your  conscience 
in  Myself  ;  you  want  some  means  of  shielding  your 
64 


CAPERNAUM,   OR   THE   WORK   OF   CHRIST 

heart  from  all  the  petty  worries  and  troubles,  the 
great  upsets  and  downsets,  and  all  the  contrarieties 
and  meaningless  vexations  of  this  world  of  sorrow. 
How  are  we  to  go  through  it  all  with  unruffled 
spirits  ?  \Miat  is  the  secret  of  living  three-and- 
thirty  years  or  more  in  this  world  without  being 
overburdened  with  the  cares  and  disappointments 
of  life  ?  How  can  it  be  done  ?  Christ  bids  us 
consider  Himself,  and  says  in  effect,  "  I  have  some 
wonderful  harness  that  I  have  used  ;  I  have  worn  it 
all  Uy  life— at  home,  in  Nazareth,  and  in  My  public 
life— and  it  fits  Me  perfectly.  You  shall  have  it ; 
I  will  give  you  My  own  yoke,  with  which  I  have 
drawn  the  load  of  ]\Iy  Hfe,  and  you  will  find  it  will 
fit  you,  and  your  load  will  then  be  Hght,  the  moment 
the  collar  is  easy.  WTieu  the  yoke  is  easy,  then  the 
burden  is  light."  The  one  foUows  the  other ;  it  is 
cause  and  effect.  The  cause  is  the  easy  yoke,  the 
effect  is  a  light  burden.  And  when  the  burden  is 
light  from  this  cause  wonderful  things  are  seen. 

You  see  a  Christian  mo\'ing  on  with  a  brave  and 
unfaltering  step,  and  you  know  perfectly  well  the 
heavy  load  of  sorrow  he  is  drawing  through  Hfe  ;  you 
know  all  about  the  upsets,  the  cruel  bereavements, 
the  false  friends,  the  constant  worries,  the  narrow 
means,  and  the  failing  health,  and  yet  you  never  see 
him  unhappy  ;  you  perceive  that  the  heavy  burden  is 
really  light,  but  you  cannot  see  the  real  cause,  which 
is  the  collar  on  the  neck  with  which  he  draws  the  load. 
He  has  Christ's  collar  on,  and  the  burden  of  life  is 
light. 

Let  me,  however,  give  a  word  of  caution  here. 
Nothing  I  have  said  or  that  tliis  passage  teaches 
65  E 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

alters  the  fact  that  sorrow  is  sorrow  and  is  meant 
to  be  felt,  that  pain  is  pain  and  discipline  is  for 
our  good.  Shattered  nerves,  anguished  bodies 
and  overwrought  minds  are  everywhere  around  us, 
and  our  Lord's  blessed  yoke  does  not  annul  these  : 
still  less  is  it  His  wish  we  should  go  through  such 
trials  with  a  careless  and  unconscious  heart. 

On  the  contrary,  our  Lord,  whose  face  was  more 
marred  than  any  man's,  felt  every  sorrow,  every 
grief,  every  contradiction  of  sinners  against  Him- 
self. The  question  here  is  not  a  means  for  becoming 
insensible  to  grief  and  trouble,  but  of  finding  a 
rest  for  our  souls,  which  is  a  far  different  thing. 

Our  burden,  undoubtedly,  of  whatever  distress 
and  anguish  or  weakness  of  body  and  mind  it  is 
composed,  is  often  increased  and  made  heavier  by 
fretting  against  it  from  the  injustice  of  man,  or  from 
questioning  the  wisdom  and  love  of  God  ;  and  it  is 
to  prevent  these  two  ills,  that  so  add  to  the  weight 
of  life's  burden  and  destroy  the  rest  of  soul,  that 
this  yoke  is  designed.  His  yoke  is  easy,  because 
it  is  properly  padded. 

What  is  it  padded  with  ?  Two  materials. 
And  here  we  reach,  on  our  Lord's  authority,  the 
very  inside  secret  of  a  Christian's  happiness.  This 
is  the  real  cause  of  the  quiet  serenity,  the 
even  tenor  of  a  good  man's  life.  He  has  read  St. 
Matthew  xi,  he  has  come  to  Christ,  he  has  taken 
His  yoke  upon  him,  he  has  learnt  of  Him,  and 
the  result  is  his  burden  is  light,  because  his  yoke  is 
easy. 

What,  then,  is  this  yoke  padded  with  ?  That  is 
what  we  want  to  get  at.  The  two  materials  raen- 
66 


CAPERNAUM.   OR  THE   WORK   OF  CHRIST 

tioned  are — meekness  and  lowliness  of  heart.  Please 
don't  make  any  mistake.  This  is  not  meekness  of 
face.  I  do  not  know  anything  more  exasperating 
than  to  see  a  sanctimonious  face  ;  it  always  makes 
one  feel  antagonistic.  You  instinctively  distrust 
a  person  ostentatiously  meek  in  face.  But  true 
meekness  is  not  of  this  character.  Of  course  there 
is  a  stamp  on  the  face,  but  it  is  quite  different  from 
what  we  despise  ;  it  speaks  of  meekness,  a  lowliness 
in  heart. 

Why  we  so  often  dislike  a  meek  face  is  be- 
cause in  nine  cases  out  of  ten  it  goes  with  a  proud 
heart,  and  a  meek  expression  is  put  on  the  face 
because  there  is  none  in  the  heart.  People  detest 
instinctively  the  fraud  of  a  counterfeit  of  meekness 
that  puts  such  a  look  on  the  face  while  the  heart 
may  be  steeped  in  pride. 

But  what  is  the  difference  between  meekness 
and  lowliness  ?  I  take  it,  meekness  is  our  attitude 
to  man,  and  lowliness  is  the  attitude  to  God.  You 
will  find  them  both  exhibited  in  this  chapter.  Christ, 
as  it  were,  gives  a  grand  display  of  the  harness  in 
Matthew  xi,  and  then,  having  shown  its  value,  He 
gives  it  to  us  to  put  it  on  at  the  close. 

Look  at  the  chapter.  Here  you  see  our  Lord 
quietly  going  through  life  just  as  you  may  see  a 
horse  drawing  a  burden  along  a  road.  He  never 
says  to  us  "  Go  "  ;  He  says,  "  Come,"  He  never 
asks  us  to  tread  a  path  He  has  not  trodden  first, 
and  He  pursues  the  same  order  here. 

Turn  for  a  moment  to  verse  i6,  and  you  will 
find  what  things  Christ  had  to  endure.  How 
would  you  like  to  be  told,  at  a  time  when  devil- 
6- 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

possession  was  the  prevailing  belief  of  the  people, 
that  you  were  devil-possessed,  and  to  be  told 
it  in  no  joke,  but  in  grim  earnest  ?  How  would 
you  like  to  be  called  a  glutton  and  a  drunkard  ? 
How  would  you  like  to  be  told  that  your  friends 
were  the  most  abandoned  people  in  London,  that 
you  were  always  seen  going  about  with  the  fast  set, 
or  the  low  set,  or  the  sinful  set,  or  the  depraved  set  ! 
Not  only  going  about  with  them,  but  that  you 
were  as  bad  as  they  ;  in  fact,  that  you  were  possessed 
absolutely  by  the  devil. 

Now  try  and  imagine  the  Son  of  Man,  who  for 
our  sakes  had  taken  upon  Himself  the  form  of 
a  man.  being  exposed  to  such  language  as  insults 
here.  Imagine  it  if  you  can  !  But  He  answered 
not  a  word.  All  that  He  said  was  "  Wisdom  is 
justified  of  all  her  children."  "  You  can  know 
a  tree  by  its  fruits.  I  go  where  I  like,  and  you 
m:iy  say  what  you  will  about  me  ;  but  see  what 
I  do  ;  observe  what  I  say  ;  mark  the  commence- 
ment and  the  end  of  My  life." 

Beginning  in  Nazareth,  as  I  pointed  out  in  my 
last  address,  for  thirty  years  Christ  had  to  endure 
the  contradiction  of  four  men  far  older  than 
Llimself  (his  half-brothers,  or  cousins),  who  did 
not  believe  in  Him,  and  His  sisters,  who  do 
not  seem  ever  to  have  been  among  His  followers. 
When  He  leaves  His  home  and  goes  to  the 
S3'-nagogue  He  is  hurled  out  of  it,  and  is  in  danger 
of  His  hfe.  H3  then  leaves  His  native  town 
and  never  enters  it  again.  He  dare  not  go  into 
Judea,  but  has  to  remain  in  Galilee,  and  He  stays 
bv  the  sea  and  spends  all  His  strength  and  all  His 
6S 


CAPERNAUM,   OR   THE   WORK   OF   CHRIST 

life  upon  these  lake-side  cities.  He  has  then  to 
confess  that  He  has  Hved  in  vain  ;  He  has  spent  His 
strength,  so  far  as  they  are  concerned,  for  nought. 
And  these  are  the  ones  who  turn  round  and  call  Him 
every  blasphemous  name  they  could  think  of.  He 
replies  nothing  save— "  Wisdom  is  justified  of  all 
her  children."     That  is  meekness. 

Do  these  revilings  vex  and  perturb  Him  ?  Dots 
He  go  about  with  a  chafed  spirit  ?  No,  ne\tr. 
"  Wisdom  is  justified  of  her  children  "  is  all  the 
reply  He  has  to  give  to  every  abominable  accusa- 
tion.    This  is  "  meekness  of  heart." 

Before  turning  to  humility,  I  should  like  to  call 
attention  for  one  moment  to  our  Lord's  remarks 
about  Tyre,  Sidon,  and  the  land  of  Sodom 
(which  includes  Gomorrah).  He  began  to  upbraid 
the  cities  wherein  most  of  His  mighty  works  were 
done,  because  they  repented  not ! 

"  Woe  unto  thee,  Chorazin  !  woe  unto  thee,  Bethsaida  ! 
for  if  the  mighty  works  which  were  done  in  you  hail  been 
done  in  Tyre  and  Sidon,  they  would  have  repented  long  ago 
in  sackcloth  and  ashes.  But  I  say  unto  you,  It  shall  be 
more  tolerable  for  Tyre  and  Sidon  at  the  day  of  judgment 
than  for  you.  And  thou,  Capernaum,  which  art  exalted 
unto  heaven,  shalt  be  brought  down  to  hell :  for  if  the 
mighty  works  which  have  been  done  in  thee  had  been  done 
in  Sodom,  it  would  have  remained  until  this  day." 

He  never  says,  "Woe  unto  thee,  Nazareth," 
and  yet  Nazareth  had  turned  Him  out  and  Caper- 
naum had  not  ;  He  never  says,  "  Woe  unto  thee, 
Nazareth,"  because  Nazareth  had  never  been  evan- 
gehzed  by  Him.  Nazareth  was  a  personal  matter. 
It  was  the  result  of  His  living  there  But  He  never 
69 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

worked  amongst  them  as  He  did  in  Capernaum. 
He  lived  His  life  in  utter  seclusion  in  Nazareth. 

Consider  now  carefuUy  Christ's  words  here. 
Jesus  as  God  appears  not  only  to  know  aU  men's 
hearts,  what  they  were  and  are,  but  He  appears 
also  to  know  what  they  would  have  been  under 
different  circumstances.  The  statement  here  throws 
no  little  additional  light  upon  the  fate  of  the  heathen 
as  revealed  in  Romans  ii. 

I  say  '  additional  light '  for  what  our  Lord  says 
here — and  we  must  take  His  words  with  deep  solem- 
nity— amounts  to  this  :  "If  the  gospel  that  you 
have  heard  had  been  preached  in  Tyre  or  Sidon 
or  Sodom  or  Gomorrah  " — the  four,  most  wicked 
cities  in  the  world — "  they  would  have  repented." 
Not  they  would  have  rejected  it.  He  knew  by 
divine  knowledge  that  if  they  had  had  the  opportu- 
nity they  would  have  taken  it.  What  a  Hght  this 
throws  upon  the  "  more  tolerable  !  " 

WTien  Christ  judges  those  cities  in  the  day  of 
judgment  and  the  people  in  them,  He  has  to  judge 
them  as  four  cities  whose  people  He  had  Himself  de- 
clared would  have  repented  if  they  had  had  the 
chance.  Now,  that  throws  a  flood  of  light  upon 
a  most  obscure  subject. 

This  whole  scene,  I  have  said,  occurred  when 
Jesus  was  in  a  Pharisee's  house,  and  I  think  it  was 
a  most  wonderful  thing  that  in  that  Pharisee's  house 
with  cavillers  aU  around.  He  should  point  out  that 
the  secret  of  an  easy  Ufe,  the  secret  of  a  happy  heart, 
the  secret  of  a  Ught  burden  was  a  meek  and  lowly 
spirit. 

Observe  the  marked  emphasis  with  which  those 


CAPERNAUM,   OR   THE   WORK   OF   CHRIST 

words  were  spoken.  *'  At  that  time  Jesus  answered 
and  said  "  ;  "At  that  time  "  when  all  these  cities 
rejected  Him,  when  His  strength  had  been  spent 
for  nothing,  when  He  had  been  called  every 
opprobrious  name  that  could  be  heaped  upon  a 
defenceless  man,  He  turned  to  God  with  true  lowliness 
of  heart  and  said  ; 

"  I  thank  thee,  O  Father,  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  be- 
cause Thou  hast  hid  these  things  from  the  wise  and  pru- 
dent, and  hast  revealed  them  unto  babes." 

But  why,  why  had  God  done  that  ? 

The  curious  and  the  unlowly,  the  wise  in  their 
own  conceit  would  have  argued  for  an  hour,  would 
have  argued  for  days.  Why  should  God  hide 
these  things  from  the  wise  and  prudent  ?  Is  it 
not  wise  to  be  wise  ?  Is  it  not  well  to  be  prudent  ? 
And  we  can  imagine  a  heated  debate  going  on  for 
hours  as  to  the  wisdom  of  God  in  doing  this.  What 
did  Christ  answer  ?  Here  we  get  the  true  humility, 
the  lowliness  of  heart  towards  God  of  the  man 
Christ  Jesus. 

The  only  reply  that  the  eternal  Son  who  was  in 
the  bosom  of  the  Father  gave — making  no  assertion 
of  His  knowledge  of  the  secret  counsels  of  God, 
but  simply  taking  the  place  of  a  dependent  man 
(the  attitude  that  every  one  of  us  can  take)  was — 
"  Even  so.  Father,  for  so  it  seemed  good  in  Thy 


Now,  that  is  true  lowhness  of  heart,  and  with 
such  a  spirit  you  will  never  get  a  sore  neck.  We 
get  the  raw  places  on  our  spirits  by  chafing  against 
the  providence  of  God.  It  is  either  fretting  over  the 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

contradiction  of  men  or  the  providence  of  God  that 
gives  us  sores  on  our  necks.  You  get  the  contradic- 
tion of  man  in  the  early  part  of  the  chapter  ;  you 
get  the  mysterious  providence  of  God  in  the  latter 
part ;  and  at  the  end  you  get  meekness  and  lowliness 
to  meet  them.  If  you  pad  your  collar  with  these 
two  things,  meekness  and  lowliness,  no  load  will 
ever  chafe  you,  and  you  will  be  able  to  pull  the 
heaviest  burden  through  life  with  a  light  heart ; 
you  wiU  know  you  have  at  last  got  the  Christian's 
secret.  This  is  the  secret ;  to  wear  Christ's  harness. 
This  is  what  He  offers ;  that  is  what  He  says 
here. 

You  reply.  How  can  I  obtain  it  ?  It  is  all 
very  easy  to  talk  about  it ;  but  it  is  hard  to  grasp, 
and  I  don't  seem  to  have  got  a  hold  of  it !  Well, 
you  know  there  are  seven  "  I  wills,"  of  Christ's 
in  the  Bible,  and  these  seven  "  I  wills  "  of  Christ's 
are  all  waiting  on  one  "  I  will  "  from  you — "  I 
will  arise  and  go  to  my  Father."  It  is  just  the 
movement  of  your  heart  that  is  wanted  since  the 
living  God  has  opened  for  you  aU  these  storehouses 
of  blessing,  waiting  for  your  reception. 

AU  these  blessings  are  for  us,  the  moment  we 
touch  God,  and  touching  the  hem  of  Christ's  gar- 
ment by  faith  is  touching  the  Uving  God.  But, 
you  say,  I  am  so  proud,  I  am  always  questioning 
God.  This  is  only  because  you  do  not  know  Him. 
There  is  this  about  Him,  the  moment  we  touch  God 
we  have  not  to  learn  to  be  meek  and  lowly  ;  we 
become  it  intuitively,  we  become  so  necessarily,  be- 
cause the  moment  we  are  in  touch  with  Him  He 
makes  us  hke  Himself.  He  produces  that  in  our 
72 


CAPERNAUM,   OR  THE   WORK   OF   CHRIST 

spirit  which  was  never  there  before,  but  which  was 
in  His  on  earth  ;  not  by  effort,  not  by  attainment, 
but  by  being  in  contact  with  the  Hving  God.  This 
is  Christ's  secret  of  the  easy  yoke  and  the  light 
burden  ! 


73 


FOURTH  ADDRESS 

Jerusalem,  or  the  Death  of  Christ 

TO-DAY  we  have  to  try  and  picture  the  last 
scenes  in  the  Hfe  of  our  Lord — in  fact, 
one  may  say,  the  last  week  of  His  life.  It  is  a 
remarkable  fact — I  do  not  know  whether  you  have 
noticed  it  yourselves — that  this  part  of  our  Lord's 
life  is  told  in  such  detail  that  it  occupies  one-third 
of  the  whole  of  the  Gospels.  If  the  rest  of  His 
public  life  were  written  at  the  same  length,  it  would 
take  four  Bibles  to  contain  it,  and  if  His  whole 
Hfe  on  earth  were  written  in  the  same  detail,  it 
would  take  forty  Bibles  as  large  as  ours  to  record 
the  wonderful  words  and  works.  This  fact  comes 
home  to  us  as  showing  the  enormous  importance 
of  these  closing  days.  Now,  I  only  propose  to  try 
and  give  a  brief  but  vivid  sketch  of  them  as  they 
would  appear  if  we  had  lived  in  Palestine  at  that 
time. 

Try  and  realize  the  scene.  We  commence  with 
Tuesday  afternoon,  March  28,  in  the  year  that  our 
Lord  died.  On  that  day  our  Lord,  who  had  been 
in  Idumea,  joined,  we  believe,  the  caravan  of  Pass- 
over pilgrims  that  Wcis  coming  down  from  Nazareth 
and  Galilee. 

You  understand  the  Galileans  were  very  pious 
M 


JERUSALEM,   OR  THE   DEATH   OF  CHRIST 

people,  and  always  came  up  in  hundreds,  and 
sometimes  in  thousands,  to  the  Passover  feast. 
They  would  not,  however,  go  through  Samaria, 
which  is  the  direct  route,  because  they  ran  the  risk 
of  defilement,  so  they  went  through  Gilead  and 
down  the  farther  bank  of  the  Jordan,  although  they 
were  in  great  danger  from  wandering  bands  of  Arabs 
and  Bedouins,  who  would  assault  and  rob  them. 
Nevertheless,  they  would  rather  risk  losing  their 
lives  by  robbers  than  losing  their  souls  by  ceremonial 
defilement,  for  in  Samaria  they  were  in  constant 
danger  of  eating  some  food  or  touching  something 
that  had  been  defiled  by  a  Samaritan. 

On  Tuesday,  March  28,  this  simple  band  of 
country  folk  would  arrive  at  the  Ford.  There 
would  be  long  strings  of  camels  laden  with  tents 
and  baggage,  and  asses  for  the  women  to  ride,  and 
amongst  the  pilgrims,  no  doubt,  the  mother  of  our 
Lord  and  a  great  many  of  His  friends,  who  would 
welcome  Him  with  His  disciples  as  they  met  on  the 
farther  bank  of  the  Jordan. 

On  Wednesday  morning  they  would  set  forth  to 
cross  Jordan  at  the  Ford,  a  memorable  spot  to  our 
Lord.  He  would  well  remember  the  first  time  He  stood 
in  its  waters  at  this  place,  when  the  heavens  were 
opened  upon  Him  and  the  testimony  to  the  beloved 
Son  in  whom  God  was  well  pleased,  was  heard 
from  heaven.  He  crossed  with  the  band  of  pilgrims 
through  the  shallow  but  rapid  stream,  then  started 
with  them  to  walk  the  ten  miles  to  Jericho. 

As  they  were  on  their  way  He  began  to  tell  them 
what  was  pressing  deeply  on  His  spirit,  of  His  coming 
sufferings  and  death,  which  should  be  followed  by 
75 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

His  glorious  resurrection.  In  the  midst  of  this 
He  was  suddenly  interrupted  by  the  mother  of 
Zebedee's  children,  absorbed  in  her  own  thoughts 
as  she  rode  along  on  an  ass  by  His  side  while  He 
walked.  She  turned  to  Him,  thinking  He  was, 
after  all,  going  to  come  into  an  earthly  kindgom, 
and  tried  to  forestall  the  others  by  getting  the  first 
two  places  for  her  own  sons. 

The  peculiar  selfishness  of  this  lies  in  the  fact 
that  with  an  Eastern  king  there  were  but  two 
chief  posts  of  honour.  The  mother  knew  well 
that  Peter,  James  and  John  had  ever  been  together, 
and  now  she  was  seeking  a  pledge  from  Christ 
that  would  shut  out  Peter  altogether.  But  she 
was  not  only  selfish,  this  was  perhaps  natural. 
She  was  callous  as  weU ;  oblivious  of  Christ 
and  His  sorrows,  she  thought  only  what  advantages 
she  could  secure  for  her  sons.  Our  Lord  replied 
with  Divine  wisdom,  and  the  disciples  were  filled 
with  anger,  not  because  there  was  such  a  heart- 
less disregard  for  Christ's  sorrows,  but  indig- 
nation at  the  low  and  mean  attempt  of  this  mother 
to  forestall  their  own  places.  The  ten  were  just 
as  selfish  as  the  two ;  and  such  were  the  hearts 
amongst  which  Christ  had  to  travel  on  His  last 
journey  along  those  ten  miles  to  Jericho  ! 

When  they  got  near  they  would  enter  that  won- 
derful belt  of  olives  and  date-palm  trees  that  sur- 
rounded the  city.  Jericho  was  then  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  cities  of  the  whole  land  of  Syria.  It  was 
not  the  Jericho  ot  Joshua,  the  city  of  the  curse, 
nor  was  it  the  Jericho  of  modem  times.  It  was 
about  six  miles  from  the  former  and  about  three 
76 


JERUSALEM,   OR   THE   DEATH   OF   CHRIST 

from  the  latter — a  city  built  by  Herod  the  Greek, 
and  the  favourite  city  of  Cleopatra,  full  of  heathen 
temples,  containing  a  college  for  students  of  the 
Greek  mythology,  and  baths,  and  theatres,  and  also 
every  form  of  Oriental  vice. 

You  must  picture  this  band  of  pilgrims  passing 
through  the  main  street  of  Jericho  and  our  Lord 
walking  with  them ;  you  must  see  the  women 
riding  on  asses  and  holding  palms  in  their  hands ; 
you  must  hear  the  whole  multitudes  chanting  in 
an  irregular  manner  the  closing  Psalms  of  David  ; 
and  you  must  picture  the  streets  filled  with  a 
curious  crowd,  much  in  the  same  manner  as  our 
streets  are  filled  when  a  procession  passes.  Our 
Lord  would  walk  on  that  occasion  under  the  very 
walls  of  the  Temple  of  Jupiter,  which  was  in  the 
main  street  that  led  up  to  Jerusalem.  He  never 
stopped  in  a  city  of  the  Greeks,  and  He  never  stayed 
a  night,  so  far  as  we  know,  in  a  walled  town ;  so  He 
passed  through  to  the  western  outskirts. 

And  here  He  was  refreshed  with  two  cups  of  cold 
water  for  His  thirsty  spirit,  provided  by  God  ;  for 
His  meat  and  His  drink  was  ever  to  do  His  Father's 
will.  One  was  when  the  blind  man  cried,  "  Son  of 
David,  have  mercy  upon  me,"  and  Christ  rejoiced 
as  He  touched  his  eyes  and  gave  him  his  sight. 
The  other  was  found  in  a  man,  Zacchceus,  who  was 
hiding  in  a  tree.  Christ  called  him  down,  and  told 
him  that  He  would  that  day  abide  in  his  house,  the 
house  of  a  man  who  was  known  to  be  a  sinner.  The 
technical  term  "  sinner  "  then  meant  a  man  who 
did  not  subscribe  to  the  oral  liw  of  the  Pharisees. 
This  sinner  was  very  like  the  Saviour  in  this,  and 
77 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

Christ  spent  the  night  under  his  roof  to  the  no  small 
scandal  of  His  own  followers.  This  was  on  Wed- 
nesday, March  29. 

On  Thursday  morning  they  would  rise  fairly 
early  to  pursue  the  toilsome  journey  to  Jerusalem, 
an  ascent  of  no  less  than  4,000  feet,  which  is 
a  very  toilsome  climb  when  it  is  travelled  on  foot 
along  very  dusty  roads  under  the  intense  torrid 
heat  of  a  burning  sun.  Only  part  of  the  distance, 
however,  would  be  covered  that  day,  for  they  rested 
when  halfway  to  Jerusalem,  at  what  was  known 
as  the  "  Desert  Inn,"  the  only  khan  between  Jericho 
and  Jerusalem. 

As  they  went  there,  the  disciples  had  in  their 
minds  the  question  of  Christ's  coming  kingdom, 
and  no  doubt  they  had  been  debating  that 
night  as  to  who  would  have  the  best  places  and 
whether  James  and  John  would  get  any  advantage  ; 
and  the  debate  continued  the  next  morning.  So 
our  Lord,  hearing  them  talk,  began  to  teU  them  the 
parable  of  the  ten  pounds,  showing  that  the  coming 
of  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  its  glories  would  be 
delayed,  that  a  long  time  must  lapse  before  any 
one  would  get  any  place  in  the  earthly  kingdom. 
And  having  said  this,  and  doubtless  tired  of  the 
ambitious  spirit  that  seemed  to  surround  Him,  He 
walked  on  ahead  in  front  of  the  caravan  by  Him- 
self. He  went  on  before  them  to  this  Desert  Inn, 
where  they  all  spent  the  Thursday  night. 

At  this  khan  I  think  we  may  pause  for  one  moment 

to  remark  that  ever  since  the  parable  of  our  Lord  its 

name  has  been  changed.     It  is  no  longer  known  as 

the  "  Desert  Inn,"  but  the  "  Inn  of  the  Good  Samari- 

78 


JERUSALEM,   OR   THE   DEATH  OF   CHRIST 

tan,"  for  this  was  the  inn  to  which  the  wounded 
traveller  was  brought  by  the  Good  Samaritan  when 
his  wounds  were  bound  up. 

At  this  inn,  when  I  stayed  there — not  the 
identical  place  where  Christ  slept  on  that  Thurs- 
day night,  which  was  just  above  us  on  the  hill, 
but  the  modem  inn  that  takes  its  place  close  by 
—I  came  across  the  "  club  "  of  the  23rd  Psalm— 
"  Thy  rod  and  Thy  staff  they  comfort  me,"  liter- 
ally, "Thy  crook  and  Thy  club,  they  comfort 
me."  The  Psahn  speaks  of  "  the  valley  of  the 
shadow  of  death" ;  but  there  is  no  '  death'  in  the  text. 
It  is  literally  "  Though  I  walk  through  the  dark, 
rocky  gorge,  I  will  fear  no  evil  for  .  .  .  Thy 
crook  "—to  puU  me  back—"  and  Thy  club  "—to  kill 
the  wild  beasts — "  they  comfort  me."  It  is  not  a 
time  of  sorrow ;  it  is  a  tune  of  danger— the  sheep 
fear  evil. 

I  saw  this  shepherd's  club,  which  in  the  Hebrew 
is  called  "  Shaphtar " ;  it  has  a  bulbous  head 
studded  with  nails,  and  is  made  of  oak  from 
Bashan.  When  the  shepherds  became  kings,  as 
they  did  in  Egypt,  they  took  this  "  Shaphtar  "  with 
them  on  the  throne,  and  the  club  has  become  the 
"  sceptre  "  of  kings  ever  since.  The  word  "  sceptre  " 
doubtless  comes  from  the  word  "shaphtar,"  and 
when  King  Edward  VII  was  crowned  in  Westminster 
Abbey  he  was  holding,  to  all  intents  and  purposes, 
the  club  of  the  23rd  Psalm. 

On  Friday  morning,  the  last  day  of  March,  our 

Lord  went  up  with  the  caravan  until  He  reached 

the  top  of  the  steep  ascent  from  Jericho.     A  mile 

this  side  of  Jerusalem  one  arrives  at  the  foot  of  the 

79 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

Mount  of  Olives,  and  the  road  to  Jerusalem  winds 
round  the  base  of  the  Mount  to  the  left ;  but  on  the 
side  of  the  hill  He  was  approaching  stood  the  little 
grey  village  of  Bethany,  with  its  back  to  Jerusalem 
and  its  face  towards  Jericho. 

Our  Lord  here  took  leave  of  His  mother  and 
turned  into  the  rugged  lane  that  leads  in  a  few 
steps  up  to  the  village.  There  He  went  to  the 
house  of  Mary  and  ]\Iartha,  which  is  the  fourth  or 
fifth  house  up  the  road  on  the  right-hand  side.  He 
entered  here  and  spent  the  Friday  night  quietly. 

Now,  Friday  night,  we  must  remember,  is  the 
beginning  of  the  Sabbath.  The  rest  of  the  cara- 
van would,  therefore,  have  a  very  busy  time. 
They  went  round  the  foot  of  the  Mount  of  Olives, 
and  then  came  in  fuU  view  of  Jerusalem,  with  its 
glorious  temple  and  its  mighty  grey  waUs.  They 
would  then  turn  along  the  Valley  of  Jehoshaphat 
to  the  slopes  of  the  Mount  of  Olives,  where  was 
the  encampment  of  the  Galilee  peasants. 

Jerusalem  has  space  outside  the  waUs  for  pil- 
grims on  all  four  sides.  The  north  side  was  always 
bare  at  Easter  :  that  was  the  place  where  the  Samari- 
tans ought  to  have  encamped  ;  and  here  our  Lord 
was  crucihed.  It  was  the  only  place  outside  the 
city  where  He  could  be  crucified  at  this  feast, 
without  being  in  the  middle  of  a  vast  throng  of 
tents,  and  caravans,  and  the  general  bustle  of  a 
fair.  The  Galileans  encamped  on  the  east ;  all 
those  who  came  from  the  Plain  of  Sharon  and  Joppa 
on  the  west,  and  on  the  south  of  Jerusalem  the 
whole  of  those  from  Judah  and  the  southern  parts 
of  the  land.  None  of  them  could  go  into  the  city ; 
80 


JERUSALEM,  OR  THE  DEATH  OF  CHRIST 

for  it  was  already  overflowing  with  people.  On 
the  north,  however,  as  I  have  said,  there  was 
no  encampment ;  and  there  our  Lord  was  to  be 
crucified. 

The  Galileans  reached  the  Mount  of  Olives  about 
one  or  two  o'clock,  it  may  be,  in  the  afternoon  ; 
and  they  had  to  get  their  tents  pitched ;  they  had  to 
get  all  their  shopping  done  for  two  days  in  Jerusalem, 
and  everything  finished  and  clean  and  settled  by 
six  o'clock  that  evening,  when  a  hush  would  fall 
upon  the  whole  hillside  as  the  Sabbath  began. 

That  Sabbath  was  spent  in  seclusion  by  our  Lord 
at  Bethany,  in  the  house  of  Martha  and  Mary,  until 
the  evening,  when  He  accepted  an  invitation  to  go 
to  supper  to  the  house  of  Simon  the  leper,  one, 
we  presume,  whom  He  had  cleansed.  This 
house  lay  at  the  top  of  the  village,  a  very  few 
steps,  about  150  yards,  from  the  house  of  Mary 
and  Martha. 

You  must  picture  our  Lord  reclining  at  supper 
with  His  beloved  friends  in  the  house  of  the  man 
who  had  been  a  leper.  As  He  was  at  supper, 
Mary  produced  an  alabaster  box  containing 
ointment  of  great  value,  which  was  nothing  less 
than  "  nard  "  that  had  been  brought  all  the  way 
from  the  Himalaya  mountains,  India.  What  really 
made  its  great  expense  was  its  rarity,  and  there  is  no 
doubt  it  came  from  the  Far  East.  It  was  not  the 
ordinary  nard,  that  might  be  a  counterfeit,  but  it 
was  the  pure,  real  genuine  thing  ;  it  was  spikenard, 
which  was  only  to  be  got  from  that  far-off  district ; 
and  it  was  worth  about  £10.  With  this  she  anointed 
our  Lord's  feet.  Then  the  Judas  Iscariot,  who  first 
81  F 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

found  fault  with  her — though  the  grumbling  soon 
spread  to  the  others,  so  soon  does  evil  run  through  a 
crowd — suggested  that  the  ointment  might  have  been 
sold  and  the  money  saved  and  given  to  the  poor. 
Shortly  after,  disgusted  with  the  waste  of  such 
money  on  Christ,  he  went  away  to  arrange  to  sell 
the  Saviour  for;^  3  los.  8d.,  or  one-third  of  the  price  of 
the  ointment  which  was  being  poured  on  Him  by 
the  heart  that  loved  Him.  The  traitor  arranged  to 
sell  his  Master  for  the  lowest  price  at  which  a 
slave  could  be  bought  in  the  market,  while  Mary 
was  anointing  that  Master's  sacred  feet  with  the 
most  costly  ointment. 

We  see  Mary  at  the  feet  of  Jesus  three  times,  and 
it  is  instructive  to  consider  them  ;  once  she  is  sitting, 
once  lying,  once  standing.  She  sits  at  His  feet  as 
the  disciple  and  learns  wonderful  things  ;  she  lies 
at  His  feet, prostrate  with  grief,  craving  for  sympathy 
and  comfort  ;  "If  Thou  hadst  been  here  my 
brother  had  not  died ;  "  and  she  stands  at  His  feet 
anointing  them  with  ointment  and  waping  them 
with  the  hair  of  her  head,  in  the  deepest  adoration. 
But  love  is  always  fuU  of  instinctive  wisdom  when 
it  is  intense,  and  her  act  was  infinitely  greater  than 
she  knew. 

So  it  is  with  our  deepest  acts,  for  which  we 
cannot  always  account.  If  we  are  in  touch  with 
God  we  are  sure  to  do  the  right  thing  at  the  right 
time  ;  at  any  rate,  there  will  surely  be  more  in  our 
act  than  we  have  put  into  it,  because  God  puts  more 
into  it.  So  did  God  hallow  Mary's  devotion,  that 
the  heart  of  Christ  interpreted  it  to  be  a  solemn 
anointing  against  the  day  of  His  burial. 
82 


JERUSALEM,   OR  THE   DEATH   OF  CHRIST 

A  crowd  seems  to  have  come  in  toward  the  end 
of  supper,  it  being  noised  about  that  Lazarus,  who 
was  still  a  popular  wonder  in  the  village,  was  in  the 
house  of  Simon  the  leper,  and  several  thus  found 
their  way  thither,  in  order  that  they  might  see  this 
risen   man. 

The  result  was  that  the  next  day,  Sunday, 
April  2,  a  day  never  to  be  forgotten,  known  by 
us  as  Palm  Sunday,  when  our  Lord  set  out  to 
enter  Jerusalem  as  king,  great  crowds  were  already 
thronging  the  road  because  of  Lazarus,  who  had 
been  raised  from  the  dead.  The  greater  number 
had  flocked  to  see  Him,  the  Prophet  who  had  raised 
the  man  from  the  dead,  with  whom  they  had  been 
the  previous  night.  These  were  joined  by  another 
great  crowd  coming  out  of  Jerusalem  and  bearing 
palms,  everywhere  used  at  this  season.  Christ 
cleansed  the  temple  on  the  Sunday  and  went  out  in 
the  evening  to  Bethany. 

On  Monday,  as  he  passed  into  Jerusalem  a 
second  time  He  noticed  the  fig-tree,  and  He  cursed 
it  because  there  were  no  figs  at  the  time,  an 
emblem  of  His  barren  people  Israel,  and  a  marked 
object-lesson,  such  as  our  Lord  was  always  giving. 
He  then  taught  them  in  most  wonderful  words 
in  the  temple  courts  on  the  Monday,  and  returned 
in  the  evening  to  Bethany. 

Tuesday  is  the  day  to  which  I  wish  to  call  your 
attention.  Tuesday,  the  4th  of  April,  was  the 
last  day  of  Christ's  mission  to  Israel,  before  the 
door  was  shut  for  ever  so  far  as  His  first  coming 
was  concerned  ;  after  which  they  never  saw  Him 
again.  He  comes  into  the  city;  He  foretells  His 
83 


WITH  CHRIST  IX  PALESTINE 

crucifixion  again.  He  takes  the  penny  and  tells 
those  who  try  to  enter  after  Him  to  render  unto 
Caesar  the  things  that  were  Cassar's.  He  then  utters 
His  solemn  sevenfold  woes  upon  the  Scribes  and 
Pharisees ;  and  as  He  has  finished  pronouncing 
this  awful  judgment,  He  lifts  up  His  eyes  and 
sees  the  poor  widow  putting  two  pieces  into  the 
treasury.  All  these  things,  and  many  more,  are 
crowded  into  our  Lord's  last  day. 

And  then,  as  the  rejected  Messiah  leaves  the 
temple — you  can  picture  the  scene — you  see  Him 
pass  into  the  valley  through  the  "  Beautiful  Gate," 
which  has  been  closed  ever  since.  The  tradition 
is  that  when  the  Messiah  again  passes  through 
that  door  the  end  of  the  world  will  come,  and  there- 
fore it  is  carefully  bricked  up  by  the  Turks,  lest 
any   one   should    enter. 

He  went  out  from  the  doomed  city  as  Messiah 
for  the  last  time,  and  turned  His  back  upon 
His  own  temple,  never  to  enter  it  again.  He 
walked  up  the  steep  slopes  of  Olivet ;  and  then 
he  turned  round,  and  with  one  last  heart-broken 
cry,  exclaimed  in  agony  : 

"  Oh,  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  thou  that  killest  the  pro- 
phets and  stonest  them  that  are  sent  unto  thee,  how  often 
would  I  have  gathered  thy  children  together,  even  as  a  hen 
gathereth  her  chickens  under  her  wings,  and  ye  would  not. 
Behold,  your  house  is  left  unto  you  desolate.  For  I  say 
unto  you,  ye  shall  not  see  Me  henceforth,  till  ye  shall  say. 
Blessed  is  He  that  cometh  in  the  Name  of  the  Lord  I  " 

Unseen  spiritual  forces  move  about  us  still,  eternal 
destinies  are  being  decided  in  like  manner,  and  we 
little  know  the  issues  of  even  apparently  trivial  and 
84 


JERUSALEM,   OR  THE  DEATH   OF  CHRIST 

common  place  actions.  On  this  day  the  door  was 
closed  on  Israel  for  the  last  time  ;  but  Jesus  never 
left  His  o\vn  little  band,  He  loved  them  unto  the 
end,  and  still  had  these  chosen  few  to  whom 
He  could  speak  after  His  mission  to  Israel  was 
closed. 

So  He  gathered  them  around  Him  on  Olivet, 
and  taught  them  in  chapter  after  chapter  the  won- 
derful things  that  would  happen,  and  seemed  loth 
to  return  to  Bethany.  He  must  have  stayed  hours 
over  against  the  city,  until  at  last,  as  the  evening 
fell.  He  passed  back  to  Bethany,  never  to  cross 
Olivet  again  until  He  went  forth  to  His  death. 
That  is  the  Tuesday  night,  the  4th  of  April. 

The  Wednesday  is  also  remarkable.  On  this- 
day,  the  5th  of  April,  our  Lord  does  not  seem  to 
have  spoken  or  done  anything,  or  moved  out  of  the 
house  ;  He  seems  to  have  rested  during  these  last 
quiet  hours  on  earth  in  the  house  of  ]\Iary  and 
Martha,  and  spent  the  whole  day  there  uneventfully 
after  the  tremendous  work  of  the  three  days  before. 
He  stayed  at  Bethany,  and  the  veil  drops  over  Him 
till  the  Thursday.  We  believe  during  that  Wed- 
nesday, that  the  Pharisees  and  Scribes  were  plotting 
and  making  the  final  arrangements  about  these 
thirty  pieces  of  silver.  But  our  Lord  was  perfectly 
still :  it  was  His  last  day  of  rest. 

On  Thursday  morning,  April  6th,  the  disciples 
went  before  and  prepared  the  Lord's  last  supper. 
He  did  not  return  into  Jerusalem,  or  into  the 
temple,  He  went  up  into  Mount  Zion,  where  the 
last  supper  was  held,  and  there,  in  an  upper  room, 
He  sat  with  His  friends  utterly  unknowTi  to  the 
85 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

people.  Then  after  supper  and  a  long  farewell 
talk,  He  passed  down  to  Gethsemane,  of  the  sorrows 
of  which  I  will  say  nothing  now.  There  He  was 
taken  by  the  band  of  soldiers  and  kissed  by  Judas, 
who  betrayed  Him,  not  on  His  face,  as  the  pictures 
represent,  but  on  His  hand.  And  then  He  was 
led  from  one  tribunal  to  another,  aU  equally  im- 
potent, until  the  final  scene  closed  upon  Him. 

I  saw  in  a  very  old  church  in  Jerusalem  a  bit  of 
a  broken  arch  which  there  is  reason  to  believe  is 
the  very  arch  under  which  Christ  was  finally 
led  by  Pilate,  when  he  said  to  the  raging  crowd, 
"  Behold  the  Man."  And,  groping  twenty  feet 
down  close  by,  we  come  to  the  old  pavement.  We 
saw  where  the  Roman  soldiers  were  playing  dice  to 
while  away  the  time  while  Jesus  was  tried  for  His 
life.  He  was  crowned  with  thorns  just  behind 
that  arch,  the  purple  robe  was  put  upon  Him,  and 
He  was  led  forth  to  His  death.  This  was  really  on 
Friday  morning,  the  7th  of  April. 

Then  He  was  taken  to  Calvary,  a  rounded  bare 
summit  outside  the  gate  of  Damascus,  like  a  skull 
with  two  eyes  in  front  of  it ;  the  two  sockets  are 
caves,  one  of  them  being  an  historical  cave  known 
as  the  Cave  of  Zechariah,  (for  what  reason  I  know 
not),  these  make  the  hill  look  exactly  like  a  skuU  ; 
and  there,  on  Calvary,  our  Lord  was  crucified. 

On  Saturday,  April  8,  He  lay  aU  the  time  in  a 
tomb,  carefully  sealed  and  guarded  by  the  watch, 
because  warning  had  been  given  that  He  said  He 
would  rise  again — He  had  made  no  secret  of  that. 
Every  preparation  was  made  therefore  to  prevent 
people  from  being  misled  by  any  false  report. 
86 


JERUSALEM,   OR  THE   DEATH   OF   CHRIST 

There  was  no  question  of  any  real  resurrection  in 
their  minds. 

Then  we  come  to  Sunday,  April  9,  that  never-to- 
be-forgotten  morning  on  which  the  real  foundation- 
stone  of  the  Christian  faith  was  laid,  in  the  resurrec- 
tion of  Christ,  for  "  if  Christ  be  not  raised  your 
faith  is  vain  ;  ye  are  yet  in  your  sins."  The  Apostle 
does  not  separate  death  from  the  resurrection:  to 
deny  the  resurrection,  is  to  have  a  faith  that  is  vain, 
and  to  leave  people  in  their  sins  ;  in  fact,  it  is  to 
take  away  the  Saviour. 

Now  we  reach  the  subject  about  which  I  wish 
to  say  a  word  or  two,  that  is,  our  Lord  and  His 
resurrection.  Observe,  in  the  first  place,  He  has 
rejoined  "  His  own."  When  He  rose  He  did  not 
rise,  and  go  straight  to  heaven,  as  all  others  will.  He 
actually  came  back  to  a  spot  full  of  painful 
memories,  and  He  was  seen  standing  in  the  Garden 
by  a  woman,  who  is  the  first  to  see  Him  after 
His   resurrection. 

Mary  Magdalene  was  led  by  her  heart,  not  by 
her  head.  She  thinks  it  is  the  gardener — evidently 
a  substantial  form,  no  mere  vision  or  myth — 
and  she  asks  Him  where  the  Lord's  body  is  laid. 
And  then  our  Lord  Himself  turns  and  calls  her 
— His  own  sheep — by  name.  "  Mary  !  "  She  recog- 
nizes the  voice  and  falls  at  His  feet,  saying, 
"  Rabboni,  my  Master." 

But  let  us  think  at  this  moment,  not  of  what  the 
Resurrection  was  to  her,  but  what  it  was  to 
Christ.  Consider  now ;  stand  if  you  can  with 
Christ  in  that  Garden.  In  front  of  you,  half  a  mile 
away,  are  the  grey  walls  of  the  city  that  rejected 
87 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

Him,  with  the  golden  roof  of  the  Temple  rising 
above  all. 

On  those  very  walls  the  chief  priests  had 
mocked  Him  when  He  was  crucified  on  Calvary, 
which  stands  on  His  left  not  a  hundred  yards 
away.  There  is  the  rounded  hill,  like  a  skull,  hard 
by,  where  He  was  buried ;  there,  still  standing, 
is  the  cross  on  which  He  was  crucified  two  days 
before.  The  bodies  of  the  two  thieves  had  been 
taken  down  because  of  the  Sabbath  day,  but  the 
cross  was  doubtless  left  as  a  warning  and  as  a 
memorial.  There  He  had  offered  Himself  without 
spot  to  God.  Down  between  the  Temple  on  the 
right  and  Calvary  on  the  left,  down  in  the  VaUey  of 
Jehoshaphat  is  Gethsemane,  where  He  knelt  in 
deepest  agony,  praying  that  the  cup  might  pass  from 
Him. 

Try  and  get  into  your  heart  what  was  in  Christ's 
heart  as  He  stood  there.  All  is  over  !  The  bitter 
cup  all  drunk !  AU  finished ;  sorrow,  death, 
misery  ;  all  behind  His  back  :  while  joy,  triumph, 
resurrection,  hfe,  the  heaven  of  heavens,  and  His 
own  beloved  to  share  them  with  Him,  were  all 
before  Him. 

You  know  perhaps  what  it  is  after  tremendous 
struggles  to  have  got  the  right  side  of  some 
mighty  trouble.  Imagine  our  Lord  standing  in 
that  Garden  on  the  right  side  of  His  great  trouble, 
to  die  no  more ;  the  new  Man  in  the  old  world.  The 
same  old  walls,  the  same  old  country,  the  same  old 
hatred,  the  same  hardness  of  heart ;  but  Christ  the 
other  side  of  it  all,  looking  back  on  it  all  with  His 
wonderful  resurrection  eyes,  cis  on  a  strange  picture. 
88 


JERUSALEM-THE     ARCH     CALLED     "ECCL     lluMU,        1  ROM     WHICH 

PILATE   IS  SAID  TO  HAVE  SHOWN   THE  LORD  JESUS   TO  THE 

PEOPLE. 


JERUSALEM,   OR   THE   DEATH   OF   CHRIST 

Two  days  ago  He  was  amongst  those  men,  living 
a  purely  human  life  :  now  He  was  living  a  resurrec- 
tion life.  What  a  difference  to  be  the  other  side  of 
the  cold  water  of  death  !  What  a  change  to  be  on  the 
right  side  of  everything,  what  a  relief  to  have  drunk 
the  cup,  what  a  joy  to  have  passed  the  sorrow,  what 
a  peace  to  have  borne  the  sins,  what  a  triumph  to 
have  died  and  to  have  now  risen  again  !  Would  we 
had  all  such  an  experience  ?  What  a  feehng  of 
exhilaration  even  the  picture  gives ;  it  fills  all  the 
heart  and  mind  ^\ith  wonderful  thought. 

"  True,  perfectly  true,"  you  say  ?  "  but  what  about 
the  fact  of  the  matter  ?  "  Wise  men  now  say,  "  We 
have  learnt  better  since  we  were  at  our  mother's 
knees  than  to  beUeve  such  stories  Hterally.  We  now 
know  it  was  a  spiritual  resurrection,  and  we  know 
that  our  Lord's  body  never  really  left  the  tomb, 
but  that  His  influence  was  felt  afterwards.  To  the 
simple  disciples,  of  course,  it  was  as  if  He  had 
appeared  in  bodily  form,  but  no  resurrection 
happened  on  that  day ;  it  was  simply  that  Christ's 
spirit  remained  with  them." 

There  is  one  fact  that  I  should  like  you  to  urge 
with  any  who  argue  in  that  way — a  fact  I  have  never 
heard  brought  forward,  which  to  my  mind  is 
stronger  than  any  other  proof.  We  are  all  familiar 
with  the  testimonies  to  the  resurrection  in  the 
Bible.  Of  course  those  have  the  primary  place  ; 
but  apart  from  them,  what  is  the  strongest  proof 
that  Christ  rose  from  the  dead  ?  Shall  I  tell  you  ? 
The  sacred  day  of  the  week  to  the  Jews  was 
Saturday.  Ever  since  they  have  been  a  nation  it 
has  been  so,  and  so  far  as  we  know  that  day  was 
89 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

consecrated  because  it  was  the  last  day  of  the  week, 
corresponding  to  the  rest  after  the  periods  when 
God  worked  in  creation  ;  and  therefore  Saturday,  or 
the  Sabbath,  was  the  sacred  and  the  holy  day. 

Now,  nothing  is  more  impossible  than  to  change 
a  day  that  has  been  separated  for  special  use  for 
thousands  of  years.  The  French  Revolutionists 
thought  they  could  do  the  impossible,  and  they 
tried  to  abolish  the  Sunday ;  but  they  failed.  You 
cannot  alter  the  rhythm  of  the  week ;  it  is  an 
impossible  thing  to  do.  But  when  Christianity 
came  in.  the  impossible  was  accomplished,  the  change 
was  made. 

There  is  no  question  but  that  the  Lord  died  the 
day  before  the  Sabbath,  tliat  was  the  Friday. 
It  was  a  public  event  testified  to  by  heathen 
and  Christian  alike.  Christ  died  on  the  Friday. 
It  was  His  wish.  His  dying  wish,  that  His  death 
should  be  commemorated,  that  bread  should  be 
taken  to  represent  His  body,  that  a  cup  of  wine 
should  be  used  to  represent  His  blood,  and  that  His 
flesh  and  blood  should  thus  be  taken  in  memory  of 
His  death,  hebdomadally. 

But  throughout  the  world  this  sacred  day  on 
which  this  solemn  command  is  universally  obeyed 
is  Sunday.  Whereas,  had  Christ  not  risen,  Friday 
would  be  the  Christian  Sunday.  You  must 
remember  one  cannot  commemorate  a  thing 
except  on  the  day  it  happened.  Did  you  ever 
hear  of  any  thing  being  conunemorated  on  the 
day  upon  which  it  did  not  happen  ?  Could  one 
have  the  Waterloo  dinner  on  July  i8  ?  Every 
one  knew  when  our  Lord's  death  happened,  and 
90 


JERUSALEM,   OR  THE   DEATH   OF   CHRIST 

therefore  every  one  would  know  when  it  should  be 
commemorated,  and  therefore  all  our  sacred  build- 
ings should  be  used  specially  for  worship  on  Friday, 
on  which  day  the  Sacrament,  or  Lord's  Supper,  should 
be  taken.     Are  they  ? 

No,  you  say ;  we  go  to  Church  and  take  the 
Sacrament  on  Sunday.  Why  Sunday  ?  Nothing 
happened  on  Sunday  if  Christ  did  not  rise.  Do 
you  not  see  the  simple  fact  of  Sunday  being 
our  sacred  day  is  an  argument  that  no  one  can 
gainsay  ?  Why  Sunday  ?  There  is  no  answer 
but  one.  No  one  could  have  changed  a  week 
and .  put  the  Christian's  holy  day  on  the  basis 
of  a  doubtful  legend,  or  because  of  anything  to  which 
the  smallest  doubt  could  possibly  ever  attach ; 
even  if  attempted  it  could  not  be  done. 

And  there  is  an  extraordinary  thing  about 
Sunday  :  it  is  a  most  improper  and  unsuitable 
day  in  the  ordinary  course  of  things.  WTiy  should 
we  commemorate  our  Lord's  sacred  death  (if 
Pie  had  died  only)  except  on  the  day  when  it 
happened  ?  Yet  so  we  do.  The  wisdom  of  God 
is  wiser  than  men,  and  He  has  instituted  in 
a  way  that  no  one  has  ever  been  able  to  alter  for 
2,000  years  since,  that  the  death  of  our  Lord 
should  be  remembered,  not  on  the  day  it  hap- 
pened, but  on  the  morning  of  His  resurrection.  So 
that  the  two  things  God  has  joined  together  no 
human  hand  should  ever  be  able  to  put  asunder. 
Christ  rose  on  the  Sunday,  for  if  He  did  not  the 
sacred  day  could  only  be  on  Friday. 

Now  let  me  pass  on  to  ask  what  have  these  things 
to  do  with  us  ?    First  of  all,  the  resurrection  proves 
91 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

Christ  to  be  the  Son  of  God  with  power.  That  at 
once  sweeps  away  not  only  old  forms  of  teaching 
which  deny  His  Godhead  while  asserting  His 
humanity,  but  the  more  mystic  forms  which  are 
found  floating  all  about  London  to-day  ;  which 
give  an  exalted  humanism  to  our  Lord,  but  abso- 
lutely deny  the  categorical  assertion  that  He  was 
proclaimed  to  be  the  Son  of  God  by  His  resurrection 
from  the  dead. 

The  next  point  is  that  His  resurrection  proves 
that  the  work  He  did  two  days  before  on  Calvary  had 
been  accepted  by  God.  Let  me  put  a  case.  A  very 
old  illustration  this,  I  know,  but  perhaps  it  is  better 
than  a  good  many  newer  ones,  so  I  venture  to  use 
it. 

Supposing  a  dear  friend  of  mine,  who  shall  be 
the  Christ  in  the  application  of  the  story,  takes  my 
place  in  prison  and  says  I  will  take  your  debt  upon 
me  and  remain  in  prison  ;  you  can  go  out.  I  am 
free  ;  but  my  debt  is  not  paid,  because  if  it  were  paid 
nobody  would  need  to  be  in  prison  at  all.  As  long  as 
our  Lord  was  in  the  prison-house  of  death  there  was 
no  security  or  proof  that  the  debt  was  paid.  Suppose 
that  when  walking  down  a  street,  I  met  my  friend, 
who  had  been  shut  up  in  the  debtors'  prison,  what 
does  that  show  me  ?  The  moment  I  see  him  I  know 
that  my  debt  is  paid. 

Taking  the  responsibility  of  my  debt  put  him  in 
prison  ;  but  he  gets  out  of  it  by  paying  it  in  fuU ; 
and  when  I  see  him  free,  I  know  that  I  am  free 
indeed.  We  are  justified  because  Christ  has  risen, 
not  because  He  died.  One  cannot  of  course  separate 
the  one  event  from  the  other.  There  is  no  doubt 
92 


JERUSALEM,  OR   THE    DEATH  OF   CHRIST 

that  upon  Christ  our  sins  were  laid,  but  the  proof 
that  the  sacrifice  was  sufficient  with  God  is  found, 
not  in  the  death,  but  in  the  resurrection  of  our  Lord 
and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ. 

I  shall  never  forget  a  fox-hunter  in  Ireland  who 
cared  for  none  of  these  things,  and  whose  dearly 
beloved  young  wife  died  after  two  days'  illness.  His 
heart  was  broken,  he  followed  her  to  the  grave,  and 
1st  Corinthians  xv.  was  read  over  her  remains.  For 
six  weeks  that  man,  whether  wet  or  fine,  sat  on  her 
grave  meditating  about  her,  and  reading  over  the 
last  words  of  Scripture  he  had  heard,  which  were 
stamped  upon  his  memory.  He  kept  repeating  them 
and  muttering  them  to  himself,  as  he  sat  on  the 
grave  for  all  that  time. 

At  last  one  day  as  he  was  reading  these  words 
over  :  "  If  Christ  be  not  raised,  your  faith  is 
vain  ;  ye  are  yet  in  your  sins."  "  Yes,"  he  said, 
"  that's  true,  I  know  I'm  in  my  sins."  Then  he 
went  on  in  his  little  Testament  :  "  But  now  is 
Christ  risen,"  and  as  he  read  these  words  he  jumped 
up  from  the  tomb  and  said,  "  Why,  then  I  must  be 
out  of  my  sins." 

He  thanked  God  that  His  Spirit  had  illuminated 
his  soul  with  the  real  meaning  of  that  sentence, 
showing  him  like  a  flash  that  if  Christ  had  not  been 
raised  he  was  in  his  sins,  but  if  Christ  were  raised, 
and  he  beheved  it,  he  was  out  of  his  sins,  and 
from  that  day  he  became  an  earnest  Christian  man. 

Now  my  last  word  is  this,  and  I  don't  think  we 
have  refejred  to  it  yet  : 

"  If    ye    then  be  risen  with   Christ,  seek  those  things 
which  are  above,  where  Christ  sitteth  on  the  right  hand  of 
93 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

God.  Set  your  affections  upon  things  above,  not  on  things 
on  the  earth,  for  ye  £ire  dead,  and  your  life  is  hid  with 
Christ  in  God." 

You  see  that  garden  with  the  opened  tomb,  you 
see  Calvary  hard  by,  you  see  that  Man  standing 
in  that  garden — do  you  know  who  He  is  ?  It 
is  you  yourself  who  are  standing  there.  "  If  ye  then 
be  risen  with  Christ,"  or,  in  other  words,  "  since 
ye  then  are  risen  with  Christ,"  or  if  you  Hke  to 
look  at  Ephesians  ii.  5  :  "  When  we  were  dead 
in  sins,  hath  quickened  us  together  with  Christ." 

If  Christ  stood  in  that  garden,  I  stand  there.  I  am 
a  man  living  in  London,  but  I  am  also  a  Christian 
man,  and  as  such  I  am  risen  with  Christ,  or  I  am 
not  a  Christian  man  at  all.  The  only  meaning  of  a 
Christian  is  a  man  who  is  hving  in  the  power  of  that 
new  resurrection  life,  standing,  as  Christ  did,  in  that 
garden,  with  all  my  sorrows,  all  my  sins  behind  my 
back,  as  they  were  behind  Christ's  back  ;  and  aU  my 
joy  and  all  my  happiness  and  all  my  glorious  future 
before  my  face. 

So  that  every  step  is  a  step  into  the  shining 
light  that  shineth  m.ore  and  more — the  older  I 
grow,  the  nearer  I  get  to  it — until  the  perfect  day. 
Christ  was  there,  and  there  am  I.  You  see  our 
fortunes  are  inseparably  bound  up  together.  If 
Christ  stood  in  the  garden  and  looked  out  upon  that 
scene ;  so  do  I.  "  Ye  are  risen,"  the  Lord  sa^-s, 
and  not  only  so,  but  goes  on  to  say,  and  ye  are 
made  to  "  sit  together  in  heavenly  places  in  Christ 
Jesus  ;  that  in  the  ages  to  come  He  might  show 
the  exceeding  riches  of  His  grace  in  His  kindness 
toward  us  through  Christ  Jesus." 
94 


JERUSALEM.   OR  THE  DEATH   OF   CHRIST 

Yes,  I  would  rather  dwell  upon  the  positive  than 
the  negative.  I  would  rather  meditate  upon  what 
His  resurrection  life  brings  us  into  than  upon  what 
it  takes  us  out  of ;  I  would  rather  emphasize  the 
wonderful  new  links  with  things  Divine  that 
we  get  in  the  resurrection  life,  than  the  break- 
ing of  hnks  that  might  injure  or  hurt  this  life 
in  things  below  ;  because  the  attachment  of  the 
heart  is  more  than  the  detachment  of  the  heart ; 
the  positive  more  than  the  negative. 

And  therefore  I  find  finally  in  this  resurrection 
life,  that  I  am  brought  into  the  enjoyment  of  a 
new  home  with  a  new  Father,  with  a  new  Saviour 
and  with  a  new  family.  Scripture  says  we  are  to 
be  "  made  to  sit  together  "  so  that  I  am  not  an 
isolated  being,  and  I  can  chat  and  talk  to  other 
members  of  the  family  who  can  understand  the  new 
interest  into  which  one  is  brought. 

We  have  therefore  a  feeling  of  being  at  home 
even  now.  That  is  what  one  wants  to  get. 
Not  to  feel  that  one  is  wandering  about,  trying 
to  foUow  the  rules  of  a  rather  austere  and  some- 
what distasteful  religion  ;  not  being  cut  off  from 
pleasant  joys  by  regulations  which  seem  not  to  have 
much  meaning  in  them ;  not  to  have  a  Christianity 
which  consists  in  observances  and  ceremonies,  all  of 
man's  devising;  not  to  be  held  in  with  bit  and 
bridle ;  not  to  be  shut  up  within  stout  high  fences 
such  as  I  described  in  my  first  address,  but  able  to 
go  without  a  collar  and  without  a  chain,  with  a 
heart  attached  to  a  heavenly  Father,  with  a  feeling 
hat  wherever  we  arc  in  the  busy,  crowded  streets  of 
London,  on  the  lonely  country  side,  tossing  on  the 
^5 


WITH  CHRIST  IN  PALESTINE 

ocean,  or  travelling  amongst  strangers,  we  are  always 
at  home,  never  out  of  reach  of  our  Father's  care  and 
our  Father's  love. 

I  cannot  always  trace  them,  but  I  sometimes 
turn  round  and  see  behind  me,  in  the  ways  along 
which  I  pass,  the  dim  forms  of  His  two  messengers, 
one  is  Goodness,  and  the  other  is  Mercy.  I  need  both, 
and  wherever  I  go  they  "  shall  follow  me  all  the  days 
of  my  life,"  until  "  I  dwell  in  the  House  of  the  Lord 
for  ever."  Such  is  the  prospect,  and  such  is  the 
portion  of  the  man  who  stands  by  Christ's  side  in 
the  garden  of  the  Resurrection,  and  knows  that  he 
is  Hving  the  power  of  the  resurrection  Ufe  with 
Jesus  Christ  his  Lord ;  and  who  grasps  in  his  soul 
the  purpose  of  it  all— that  he  should  spend  this  hfe 
and  its  powers  to  the  glory  of  God  in  His  love 
to  man,  and  in  relieving  the  sorrows  and  distresses 
of  the  world  around. 


96 


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With  Christ  in  Palestine  :  four 

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